If you’ve missed the series of publications written for the ARK Research Centre of Queens University Belfast and Ulster University, you can review the most recent reports on attitudes to ethnic minorities, migrants and refugees here.
It’s crucial that employers understand and are equipped to address bias in the software used for recruitment and human resource management.
In this new toolkit, we explore the role of human bias and structural discrimination in discriminatory or unethical AI programmes, and provide clear and practical steps to ensure companies have the necessary cultural and technological tools to responsibly digitalise HR systems with the help of intelligent systems.
All welcome to our launch, where we’ll address why it’s essential we tackle algorithmic bias, and how.
We are delighted to have Dr Marta Kempny working with us on a new project on race equality in higher education this month. Dr Kempny, an anthropologist from Poland and Northern Ireland, previously worked with us on the UN CERD Civil Society Report in 2019, and on refugee integration research, and we are excited to have her collaboration on this new project.
I first met Marta when Bryan Fanning and I were preparing the book Immigrants as Outsiders in the Two Irelands. We invited Marta, an expert on the experience of Polish migrants in Northern Ireland, to contribute her research to the book. Her insightful chapter, Polish spaces in a divided city, drew on ethnographic research to examine changing spatial knowledge, mobility and community resources amongst this migrant group over a decade in Belfast. Her 2010 book, Polish Migrants in Belfast: Border Crossing and Identity Construction, is well worth reading.
Her latest research, Migrant Lives, Presents and Futures, which aimed to raise awareness about migrant lives in Northern Ireland, particularly in the context of insecurities around Brexit and the pandemic, was recently featured on a podcast. Listen here.
We are compiling a Know Your Rights guide for international protection applicants to be published by ICCL and the Irish Refugee Council.
The Guide explains rights within the protection process, under the EU Reception Directive, and a range of broader rights that apply to everyone in Ireland, including civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights such as the right to protest, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, the right not to be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, the right to education and the right to earn a livelihood.
We would like to hear from asylum seekers, refugees or anyone working with international protection applicants on the contents of the Guide. You can get in touch with us at enquiries@lucymichael.ie
Join a focus group – we are running a series of focus group discussions with international protection applicants in May. Join a discussion by emailing enquiries@lucymichael.ie
Download information about the Guide and our focus groups here
Our team – including Dr Bethany Waterhouse-Bradley of Ulster University – has recently created a new resource for employers to increase understanding of how algorithmic racial bias occurs in new human resources tools, and how to address it.
The toolkit – developed for the European Network Against Racism – drew on discussions with employers by ENAR’s Equal@Work Platform as well as academic and policy research on algorithmic bias. The Equal@work Platform is a space for employers, trade unions, public authorities and NGOS to collaborate for innovative solutions to diversity management. Members of the platform explore how to integrate an anti-racist approach; ensuring improved access to the workplace for people of colour and an end to structural discrimination in the labour market.
The use of algorithmic decision making can reduce time for HR professionals and hiring managers in screening large numbers of applicants, improve selection processes, and provide the potential for predictive analysis. Recruitment is the principal arena in which AI functions are being adopted. This includes targeted recruitment advertising, bulk screening of CVs and applications, providing recommendations to human decision makers on who to invite to interview and analysing candidates’ performance in selection tests and interviews.
As awareness grows of the problem of racist attitudes in recruitment – particularly with the popularity of the ‘unconscious bias’ approach and growing market of solutions to address it – many employers assume that automated decision making is more effective at reducing bias than human hiring managers.
AI is now recognised to reproduce and amplify human biases, and the particular capacity for this to exaggerate bias in HR processes is widely acknowledged as deserving of attention. Algorithms can reinforce discrimination if they focus on qualities or markers associated only with particular (already dominant) groups. While some of these markers are easily recognised (e.g. career gaps and gender), the current lack of racial diversity in workplaces across Europe makes markers of racial bias less well recognised.
Algorithms which reinforce these biases will further reduce diversity across the European labour market and reduce corporate flexibility in long-term workforce planning as well as the development of markets. In spite of awareness of these emerging problems, the scale of the potential issues is often understated, and the focus often on the technical aspects; or fixing the tools. This serves to both increase the likelihood of these effects being overlooked, and to shift focus away from the structural and institutional problems which often lead to the production of undesirable outcomes from the use of AI.
Diversity in the workforce is key to business success today. There is a direct correlation between the diversity of a workforce and the breadth of its perspective. Diverse workforces are also more productive, so employers should actively seek ways to recruit candidates into the workforce from different backgrounds.
But trust in algorithmic decision making can be decreased by poor recruitment outcomes, public accountability for bias, and errors in selection and performance functions, leading to ‘algorithmic aversion’. Building confidence amongst HR and D&I Managers that AI can reduce risks for firms in respect of discrimination and recruitment costs is a valuable service to business.
Outline of toolkit
This toolkit is designed for Human Resources and Diversity & Inclusion Managers, as well as Programmers, to ensure that consumers of off the shelf and custom AI solutions for Human Resource Management have a clear guide to challenges, solutions and good practice, in a format which supports conversations with Programmers providing solutions.
The toolkit explores the role of human bias and structural discrimination in discriminatory or unethical AI programmes, and provides clear and practical steps to ensure companies have the necessary cultural and technological tools to responsibly digitalise HR systems with the help of intelligent systems.
In doing so, HR and D&I managers will come to understand bias reproduction and amplification, and gain the confidence to address bias risks produced by inadequate or inappropriate training data, simplistic or reductive classifications or other human errors leading to biased outcomes of algorithmic decision making. Importantly, it will support HR teams in effectively transferring existing knowledge of discriminatory hiring practices and building diverse workplaces to the responsible deployment of intelligent systems to aid in those objectives.
The International Organization for Migration – UN Migration (IOM) launched a new Guide for Practitioners on the Home Office Indicators of Integration Framework 2019 at a well attended online event hosted by the South East Strategic Migration Partnership on 16 March.
The Indicators of Integration (IOI) framework, published in 2019 by the UK Home Office, is designed to create a shared understanding of integration, how to measure its progress, and considerations for strategic planning. With a suite of tools including a comprehensive bank of indicators and guidance on data collection, the IOI framework seeks to support those assisting migrants in improving interventions across a range of key areas.
IOM, in partnership with the Home Office and DISC initiative, has been supporting local authorities, statutory partners and civil society organisations in building their capacity to use the framework through a process of consultations with staff in each sector tailored face-to-face and online trainings, and the development of the Guide for Practitioners on the Home Office Indicators of Integration Framework 2019.
Dr Lucy Michael, co-author of the IOI framework, has led the training work and is the author of this new Guide. The Guide informs practitioners about the use of the IOI framework in integration measurement and interventions, and how you can use it in your activities, and provides a signposted step-by-step learning process to support practitioners to implement the framework in their planning, delivery and evaluation of integration projects.
INAR launch their newest report (by Lucy Michael) today with analysis of 700 reports of racist incidents submitted in 2020 to iReport.ie . The iReport.ie racist incident recording system has been designed to allow comparison with international patterns and to facilitate understandings of racism which are particular to the Irish context.
Based on the data collected through iReport.ie INAR regularly produces Reports of Racism in Ireland. We have been conducting similar analysis for these reports since 2013. Questions are designed to capture a large amount of detail about racist incidents, including information about where, when and how the incident occurred as well as details about victim(s) and perpetrator(s). The system also captures information about why the incident has been perceived as racist, its impact on the victim and/or witnesses, and the interplay with age, gender, sexuality and disability.
See the 2020 report and more reports at https://inar.ie/ireport-reports-of-racism-in-ireland/
The 2020 Data headlines:
More people reported racism in Ireland to http://iReport.ie in the last year than ever before.
People reported the same high rate of racist assaults in 2020 as in the previous year, despite the lockdown.
11% of all incidents resulted in physical injuries. Ten people were hospitalised urgently. Twenty-one people suffered head or facial injuries.
Psychological impacts and social isolation resulting from racist abuse and violence have more than doubled.
People have been forced to leave jobs and move homes because of racist violence against them.
Reports of criminal offences, hate speech and graffiti increased last year.
Reports of illegal discrimination and racial profiling by Gardai were also up.
And there has been a significant increase in hate speech by extremist groups.
We are very excited to announce that Dr Niloufar Omidi, already engaged with us on the ICCL Know Your Rights project, will join us full-time from Monday 18 March.
Dr Omidi holds a PhD in International Human Rights Law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law, National University of Ireland, Galway. Her doctoral thesis, “Peoples’ Right to Peace: Enforcement through International Law Instruments”, laid a legal-philosophical groundwork for the realisation of the right to peace as one of the essential prerequisites for a democratic and equitable international order. She also holds an LL.M. in International Law and has conducted research into international arbitration and completed international arbitration training courses with a focus on the Iran-US Claims Tribunal. Niloufar has taught modules such as “International Human Rights Law for Advocates & Activists”, “Peace Studies”, “Islam & Human Rights” and “International Environmental Law”. She has also supervised postgraduate research in Public Advocacy and Activism at the Huston School of Film & Digital Media, NUI Galway.
Following her doctoral work, she expanded her research on a right to peace beyond ‘the absence of war’ to the right to live in an inclusive, just, and peaceful society (also known as the right to positive peace). She has conducted extensive socio-legal research on minority issues as a way to promote inclusive societies. She worked as a Community Development Worker at the Galway Traveller Movement (GTM) and authored three policy position papers on the right to education, the right to health, and the right to mental health to address the existing inequality and discrimination against this ethnic minority group in Ireland. She has also carried out analytical research on minorities’ cultural rights in Iran. Niloufar has most recently been working on our project team, drafting a clear and accessible Know Your Rights guide for international protection applicants in Ireland to be published by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the Irish Refugee Council.
We are thrilled to have her expertise on board full-time, and look forward to introducing her to you through the year.
I was honoured to be asked to give the keynote speech at the launch today of a new Race Equality Guide for Employers produced by DCU Centre of Excellence for Diversity and Inclusion @DCU_DI
This Guide puts the voices of underrepresented people right at the heart of what it does, and that was a very good reason for me to support its launch! I haven’t been involved in its production at all – that credit entirely goes to the team at DCU led by Sandra Healy, to the Race Equality Forum and its partners, and to Linda Keitasha.
You can find the Guide here: http://bit.ly/38SNk8h – a recording of the event will be made available soon too.
Keynote Address
I’m very honoured to
be here to launch this Guide today, and thank you for inviting me. The Race
Equality Guide is not only necessary, but it is an excellent example of good
practice in supporting as well as encouraging progressive race equality
measures.
I have been 17 years in this area of work, working with national and regional government, international organisations, private and public sector groups, migrants and ethnic minority people from a wide range of groups. There are 3 key things I have learned about making progress on race equality:
There is no one-size-fits-all answer. Racism adapts to local contexts and structures. Every country and every sector has to develop good practice and share it for real progress to be made.
Race equality has to become part of our way of doing things. It is not a time-limited project, and it is not finished, because we are undoing centuries of barrier-building and undoing them in a world which does often not want to acknowledge those barriers exist at all.
There is a reason that Black and Ethnic Minority people are 5 times more likely to identify racism in the workplace than their colleagues. Not only do white employers and employees not experience racism in the majority, we don’t naturally see it either. We have to be prepared to view our institutions and practices in the workplace as more likely to perpetrate racism than not, and approach that problem openly and determinedly. And we have to be prepared to champion that work in a wide range of forums.
Thank you to all of the team in the DCU Centre of Excellence and the Race Equality Forum behind this Guide and the incredible work that has gone into it in the last months. The importance of this tool is not just in what it sets out to do in, but also in what it acknowledges:
A highly
stratified labour market
Job
precarity, financial precarity, and reduced choice in the labour market
And it draws
on lived experiences of those in the labour market who have been affected by
those barriers. It highlights the necessity of working in partnership
with those with lived experience in order to understand and breakdown those
barriers.
It is very important to say that this work is not optional – our society depends upon it, our business sectors depend upon it, our employers depend upon it. Yet too often it’s painted as an extra. Race equality in work is not something we can do, or should do, its something we MUST do. There are hard truths about segregation in the Irish labour market which have to be faced. There are legal protections for employees from racial discrimination, but too often discrimination is so embedded into the structures and practices of the labour market here that they cannot be unpicked and identified as single cases of discrimination. Our problem is not just conscious bias, or even unconscious bias, it’s the very structures we have built in order to do business. And the fact is that those structures do not have to discriminate for us to be effective in business. Rather, they are often shaped by a historic legacy which is not fit for the current world of work.
The segregation which
currently exists in the Irish labour market is a series of barriers which are
preventing workers from taking up jobs for which they are qualified – sometimes
overqualified – and experienced, and preventing employers from benefiting from
the wide pool of talent available in this country. We can think too not only of
ensuring we get full access to our currently qualified pool of applicants, but
of accessing tomorrow’s talent and ensuring employers can access them early and
fully for maximum development opportunities.
Work is – I think it is widely acknowledged – first amongst equals in both measures and means of integration. Not only in terms of entry to the labour market but also in pay, promotion, income security, and working conditions. Integration is not a one-stage project for newcomers either, it is an ongoing project for the whole of a society, because our world changes every day, to ensure that all groups have opportunities to contribute and to benefit. The world of work offers us opportunities for stability, for respect, for social status, and for social relationships – all of these are crucial to an equitable society.
For this reason, I am
also really pleased to welcome the establishment of the Race Advisory Council.
This is partnership in practice, and it’s something we hopefully we see a lot
more of in future. I wish you the very best for your work, and I know that the
discussions that you have will be enormously useful in extending the work
started here.
I started by saying
that we have to view our institutions and practices in the workplace as more
likely to perpetrate racism than not, and approach that problem openly and
determinedly. One of the things that has most impressed me in this Guide is the
way in which it encourages and supports employers to practice authenticity and
openness in their approach to race equality work. It is this which, for me,
enables us to move beyond race equality as a ‘fix’ towards race equality as a
mode of doing business.
Once again, congratulations to the DCU Centre of Excellence and to your Race Advisory Council for the production of this new Race Equality Guide, and many best wishes for the future work to follow. Beir bua agus beannacht libh go léir.
