Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work

People of color are held back in the workplace by unjustifiably critical white colleagues, according to this eye-opening debut report. DEI consultant Dunn calls white skepticism of Black workers’ abilities “competency checking,” suggesting it usually takes the form of assuming Black intellectual inferiority, expressing surprise or unease when such expectations are upended, and defying the authority of Black individuals. Contending that Black employees are often subjected to heightened scrutiny, Dunn cites an experiment that found law firm partners picked out errors that didn’t exist in a legal memo when they thought it was prepared by a Black man and overlooked actual errors when they believed a white man wrote it. Competency checking can be particularly hard on Black women, Dunn argues, drawing on client interviews to suggest that Black female employees often meet resistance when exercising authority because doing so upsets the stereotype of the subservient domestic worker. Dunn marshals a damning array of studies demonstrating the persistence of workplace racism (one found that white workers were more likely to secure well-paying jobs than Black peers with equal education levels), and her pragmatic solutions include nixing such biased screening tools as personality tests and conducting audits to determine problematic practices in hiring and promotion. This is essential reading for anyone invested in creating a more equitable workplace. Agent: Susanna Einstein, Einstein Literary. (Feb.)