Part of the problem may be that the proudly blind are conflating two different issues—on one hand, ignoring difference, and on the other, creating blind hiring processes that mask certain identifying characteristics, as in the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s famous auditions behind a curtain in 1952. In fact, while the first of these ideas can backfire, becoming a real barrier to progress, this other kind of anonymized process really does offer opportunities to help level the field. What we really need is some strategic use of blind processes—led by people who are prepared to acknowledge their biases.
Colleen Ammerman, the director of the Gender Initiative at Harvard Business School, said that the idea of gender or racial blindness can offer people a way to let themselves off the hook. “If we believe that we’re blind to identity, that absolves us of any responsibility or imperative to reflect on ways that we might be bringing bias to the table,” she said. It may even make us more biased: The more people think they’re blind, or that they’re objective decision-makers, the more they may make biased choices, suggest researchers Eric Uhlmann and Geoffrey Cohen.
In fact, Americans are socialized to automatically group others according to three variables—race, gender, and age. That automatic grouping triggers stereotyping, meaning that “even when members are seemingly included within a larger group or organization, they are vulnerable to subtle, often unconscious bias a result of their membership in a lower-status social group,” according to one group of researchers at Yale University.
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