Essay Sample on Xerox Corporation Discrimination

Introduction

Xerox Corporation had been reported to have imbalanced employee race, where blacks were overrepresented and whites underrepresented. In trying to adjust according to the government policies, the company favors the whites during the promotion. This has angered the black employees who have decided to file a suit against the act of discrimination in the company.

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Discrimination

According to the evidence provided, Xerox Corporation employed discrimination in correcting the employment imbalance among blacks and white. Disparate impact is a discriminatory practice that involves the use of neutral policies, rules or systems in order favor one group that seems misrepresented (SHRM, 2018). While disparate treatment is intentional discrimination that consists of processes or policies that aim to favor a certain group with protected characteristics. These characteristics could include, race, color, gender and geographic (CRITERIA, 2019). In this case, Xerox Corporation is seen to utilize disparate impact, where they employ rules that ensure there is equal representation of white people as well as black people. However, the company is not intentionally discriminating black, but ensuring that the whites are well represented since they were underrepresented.

The burden of Proof: If the plaintiffs decide to sue, the company on issues pertaining to discrimination on promotion by offering the necessary documents supporting their case. Then the court might rule in their favor since the company may luck substantial reasons for denying them promotion, considering that the company's intentions are not that visible in this context. On the other hand, if the company is sued on matters indicating discrimination, the court might rule in favor of the company. This because Xerox might seem following the government policy on ensuring that there is equal employee balance. Observing on how the company employees were distributed between the blacks and the white, the court might try to favor the whites to ensure there is a balance in the court. However, the burden of proof belongs to Xerox, who requires to explain why they are not promoting the blacks, besides their competent qualification for promotion. Thus, they will need to prove that they are not favoring whites but trying equal participation to both races.

Alternative ways. The employee imbalance in Xerox Corporation has progressed over a long period. However, this does not mean that during their recruitment, they should discriminate the blacks and employ on the whites. This is against the law and by doing that they will be breaking the government policies. Therefore, Xerox might only have the chance to bring equality, by promoting the whites. Although there might be other ways to reduce this shift, this strategy might be the best at the moment, in ensuring that there is no discrimination during the recruitment process and still the whites feel included by participating in the management. However, it is not possible to manage the whole situation immediately, the company has an obligation to ensure that the situation does not escalate.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the company has a responsibility to ensure that there is an equal distribution of race in its workforce. If this not the case, then strategic and appropriate discrimination can be used to eliminate the imbalance in the workforce. However, these strategies must be reasonable and in line with government policies even though they might not be fair to all employees.

References

CRITERIA. (2019). What is Disparate Impact? Retrieved from https://www.criteriacorp.com/resources/glossary_disparate_impact.php

SHRM. (2018, December 20). What are disparate impact and disparate treatment? Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/disparateimpactdisparatetreatment.aspx