Effects of Racial Demographics, Ideology, and Economic Threat on Majority Group Discrimination Claims

Research suggests that majority racial group members in the USA (i.e., White people) sometimes respond to high levels of racial out-group representation with attitudinal concerns about anti-White discrimination, particularly among those who endorse more conservative (vs. more liberal) ideology and perceive economic threats to their in-group. However, research has not yet assessed whether these variables predict actual anti-White discrimination claiming behavior at work. These claims are potentially problematic because concerns about White racial victimization are often cited as a reason to scale back policies aimed at improving racial diversity and racial justice in organizations. We investigate the effects of racial out-group representation, political ideology, and in-group economic threat on the prevalence of anti-White discrimination claims in US counties. In doing so, we contribute to scholarship examining the relationship between workplace intergroup relations and the social contexts surrounding them. We use computational methods to combine (a) a geocoded dataset of discrimination claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with (b) county-level data on the representation of people of color, (c) White unemployment rates, and (d) political liberalism-conservatism. Results reveal a positive relationship between the proportional representation of people of color and the proportion of claims filed for anti-White discrimination and further show that this positive association is stronger in counties with higher conservatism (vs. liberalism). This study provides the first large-scale support for the hypothesis that racial out-group representation positively relates to majority group members’ claims of racial victimization, particularly amid strong preferences to conserve the status quo.