White Men Are Still Kings of the Job Market. Here’s Proof.

Consider a man I’ll call Adam. He’s just gotten his PhD in biology and is applying for roles in a prestigious lab. He makes it to the final interview, but doesn’t get the job. The hiring manager explains that although they liked his application, their last three hires were also White men, so this time they chose a woman of color.

Many of us have heard some version of this story in recent years. Anecdotes like this get trotted out regularly as evidence that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have made it harder for qualified White men to find jobs. And such stories are central to the charge that Vice President Kamala Harris is a “DEI hire” — a term that has also been applied to Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, who is Black, and US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the court.

The attack is gaining steam politically because it taps into a sense of unfairness felt by a small but vocal share of the electorate. I hear it in the emails I get from White men when I write about DEI efforts; I see it on the Quora and Reddit threads that rise to the top of a Google search; and it’s apparent in several recent lawsuits accusing companies of discriminating against White male candidates.