[pbronez]

Interestingly, some well-intentioned “ban the box” policies backfired in terms of racial justice in hiring. These campaigns managed to outlaw the “are you a felon?” question on job applications in an attempt to make it easier for felons, many of whom belong to racial minorities, to get a fair shot at employment based on their skills. Unfortunately this caused employers to hire even fewer members of those minority groups. Apparently without the box, employers see minority hires as an unacceptable risk.

The world is a disappointing place sometimes.

[waterhouse]

If you forbid direct measurement of something, then people will use proxies, which is generally harmful to everyone involved.

If you want to minimize the extent to which people use demographics as a proxy for qualities they want to select for, then make it as cheap and reliable as possible to measure those qualities directly.

[tripzilch]

That only ends when you make it easier to figure out whether someone is going to actually harm your business in the future, rather than finding out whether they have ever been a felon.