Devil's advocate: Is requiring experience discriminatory against the disabled?

[throwawayaccount]

TL;DR version: if disabled people have a harder time getting good jobs, it's discriminatory toward them to require good job experience for entrance to your graduate program.

 

I think your immediate reaction is likely to be "no," but let's explore this a little. I think the logic behind most programs is something like this: we think professional experience helps to flesh out the content of our program, and so we generally require it. If you don't have the work experience, we recommend that you take some time, get that experience, and apply again some other time. Assuming programs don't mean to be discriminatory, there's an assumption at work here that getting professional experience is not unduly onerous for groups on race/class/gender/etc dividing lines.

My point here is that disabled people have a tougher time getting jobs at every step of the way, which makes them less qualified for professional jobs, and this in turn makes them less qualified for programs that require professional experience. This should be pretty intuitive: if you're disabled, you generally have trouble with those first jobs you can get, which usually require some basic form of physical involvement (at least in my area). In my case, I have a mobility disability—walking, standing, and so on. So it's pretty easy to see how the wide range of jobs that involve standing behind a counter or doing physical work are off-limits to me. But for a college-age person, that's a large fraction of the available jobs. Furthermore, in my area, desk jobs are rarely entry-level jobs. (I should also point out that, in my area, internships are not much of a thing. I don't know anybody who had an internship in undergrad.)

I'm saying that if you don't have those starter jobs, it's difficult to secure those second jobs, and it snowballs from there. In particular, it can be difficult for disabled people to land those kinds of early-career desk jobs. I don't want to speculate too much, but I think managers are more comfortable hiring early-career candidates with lots of work experience, and it's easier to get that experience if you meet certain physical standards. And so on: the people who get those early-career jobs get those professional jobs, and this would tend to exclude disabled people. This tendency toward exclusion would weaken disabled people's position with regard to admission to MPA programs.

So, to look at some statistics, we would expect to find something like this: disabled people are employed at a low rate, disabled people are employed in non-professional jobs, and so on. Here's what I could find:

1. In 2014, 17.1 percent of persons with a disability were employed, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. In contrast, the employment-population ratio for those without a disability was 64.6 percent. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/disabl.nr0.htm
2. In 2014, 33 percent of workers with a disability were employed part time, compared with 18 percent for those with no disability. (ibid)
3. Persons with a disability are less likely to have completed a bachelor's degree or higher than those with no disability. Among both groups, those who have completed higher levels of education were more likely to be employed than those with less education. However, at all levels of education, persons with a disability were much less likely to be employed than were their counterparts with no disability. (ibid)
4. Workers with a disability were more likely than those with no disability to work in production, transportation, and material moving occupations (15 percent compared with 12 percent). Workers with a disability were less likely to work in management, professional, and related occupations than those without a disability (31 percent compared with 39 percent). (ibid)

5. In 2014, 15 percent of workers with a disability were employed in federal, state, and local government, about the same percentage as those with no disability (14 percent). (ibid)

6. The unemployment rate for persons with a disability was 12.5 percent in 2014, about twice the figure of 5.9 percent for those with no disability. (ibid)

7. Across all age groups, however, persons with a disability were more likely to be out of the labor force than those with no disability. (ibid)

8. At the master’s level, 8% of all students with disabilities and 7% of all students without disabilities were enrolled in social and behavioral sciences.(From 2011) http://cgsnet.org/data-sources-graduate-students-disabilities

 

So, given that stuff, we can probably conclude that disabled people do worse in the economy than non-disabled people. They're less likely to be found in professional environments than "normal" folks, but perhaps not by a huge amount. Still, there is no accounting for how those people got there. My claim to start was that disabled people would have a harder time finding a professional job for experience, and I think this data seems to hint at that. While the stat on master's programs would seem to have disabled people actually overrepresented in social science master's programs, it's important to keep in mind that very many of those programs do not require work experience of any kind. In fact, most fields do not require work experience at all, and so we can't draw much of a conclusion from that. Still, I think there's an amount of support to be drawn for my basic claim from what we've got here.

Thoughts?

Edited January 11, 2016 by throwawayaccount

[throwawayaccount]

And then there's the ADA:

From the Americans with Disabilities Act:"Academic requirements must be modified on a case by case basis to afford qualified disabled students and applicants an equal educational opportunity. However, academic requirements that the institution can demonstrate are essential will not be regarded as discriminatory."

It's tough to argue that it's essential when programs do admit non-disabled students with little to no experience.

[Ben414]

EDIT: I posted a fairly flippant response because I thought you were a troll given your username. On the chance that you aren't, I'm editing to show the gist of my prior message: I think your arguments are specious.

Edited January 11, 2016 by Ben414

[throwawayaccount]

Do you have reasons why that you'd like to share?

[Ben414]

Because your arguments are specious.

1st Argument: It's discriminatory. Based on the definition of discriminatory, yes it is. However, you seem to be implying that it shouldn't be this way. I think this argument is specious. Because you don't set forth any limits on your argument and you don't differentiate the employment history/disability relationship from others, your argument could also justify the following: Blacks do worse on the GRE than do whites. (I don't actually know this, but I know it's true for the LSAT so I assume it's true for the GRE.) Therefore, it is discriminatory to base admission on the GRE. The same is likely true of GPA. What admission criteria has no relationship between different groups of people? Like I said, your argument carries little weight without at least a limit and a differentiation that makes this issue fall within the limit.

2nd Argument: It's discriminatory based on the ADA. Have you looked up any court jurisprudence over this issue? Until you have, there is no reason to give your argument any weight.

[TakeruK]

Blanket statements are tough, but yes, I do think that it is bad practice for graduate program to require X if:

1. X is not strictly required to be qualified, and

2. X is not equally accessible to all people.

Take an example from my field: Some astronomers travel to telescopes to take their data. The best telescope sites are at very high altitudes, which require some level of health and ability. I don't think it's discriminatory for a job posting that requires you to be on the mountain summit to have these fitness requirements. In my field, grad students do a lot of the observing work. So, I think it would be discriminatory for a graduate program to have these fitness requirements for all of their astronomy grad students. Why? Because there are other ways for you to be an astronomer without needing to travel to the summit. Some astronomers work on projects that don't use telescope data. Other astronomers use data that can be collected remotely, without requiring physical access to the telescopes. These are just some examples. Sure, the University might want to take a cohort of grad students in which some of them can make it to the mountain summit, but it would not be fair to make this a grad school admission requirement. Those who don't meet the mountain summit fitness requirements should not be barred from entering a grad program or dismissed from a grad program---instead, it's up to the school to reassign them on work they are able to do.

And secondly, regarding the GRE---you are right, race and gender does play a huge role in the GRE scores. If you want some examples, see this piece: http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7504-303a ; My field has argued for departments to not use cutoff GRE and Physics GRE scores because they discriminate (in short, when looking that the mean cutoff score around the country, 50% of white applicants are removed by this cutoff but 90% of black applicants are removed; similarly, more women are removed than men). (see https://aas.org/posts/news/2015/12/presidents-column-rethinking-role-gre and references therein). 

In my opinion, graduate schools are supposed to find excellence in its candidates and select those who are excellent. The best way to find excellence is to not constrain it with things like requirements of minimum GPA, minimum research experience, minimum GRE scores, etc. In some cases, these minimums would constitute discriminatory practice. Instead, I think schools are better off (and would create a more fair playing field), if we did not assume that the best candidates all fit one particular mold (whether it's GRE, GPA, research experience) and instead let students who are interested apply and communicate their excellence to us in whatever format they possess. 

[throwawayaccount]

2 hours ago, Ben414 said:

Because your arguments are specious.

1st Argument: It's discriminatory. Based on the definition of discriminatory, yes it is. However, you seem to be implying that it shouldn't be this way. I think this argument is specious. Because you don't set forth any limits on your argument and you don't differentiate the employment history/disability relationship from others, your argument could also justify the following: Blacks do worse on the GRE than do whites. (I don't actually know this, but I know it's true for the LSAT so I assume it's true for the GRE.) Therefore, it is discriminatory to base admission on the GRE. The same is likely true of GPA. What admission criteria has no relationship between different groups of people? Like I said, your argument carries little weight without at least a limit and a differentiation that makes this issue fall within the limit.

2nd Argument: It's discriminatory based on the ADA. Have you looked up any court jurisprudence over this issue? Until you have, there is no reason to give your argument any weight.

Given your example, I think admissions committees who are doing their jobs would account for the fact that black applicants would tend to do a little worse on the GRE. If they didn't, that would definitely be discriminatory. And I'm sure there are programs who do that kind of thing. Now, in this case, I think programs ought to view disabled folks' work experience in a different light: namely that it's more difficult for a disabled person to have the same work history. If they do that, I suppose there's no problem. Do they do that? I'm not sure. Based on some of the programs that pretty much require experience, I kind of doubt it.

And, to clarify, I wasn't arguing that it's necessarily discriminatory by that definition. What I meant to show is that discrimination is something that schools need to be wary of; it's not just a PR problem, it's a legal one. That said, I did look at the case law a little bit. It's all over the place, to be honest. But the disabled are a protected class, so any reasonably clear decision would probably follow along those lines. Many of the weird bits of admissions discrimination case law involve non-protected classes, or edge cases of protected classes (e.g. people claiming to be disabled on iffy grounds).

Edited January 11, 2016 by throwawayaccount

[throwawayaccount]

I will say, though, that there's an uncharitable assumption built into my original post: that admissions committees don't already take work experience into account when going over the applications of disabled people. Maybe they do; I don't really know. It may well be that disabled people are overrepresented in the social sciences precisely because dutiful committees account for these kinds of things.

But there's certainly room to be skeptical, especially since there are programs out there that make such a big deal about experience. I think we ought to give credit to the more progressive programs, such as NYU, that offer the necessary experience within the program itself. That's an inclusive way to reconcile the fact that good MPA graduates need experience with the truth that not every good MPA applicant already has that experience.

Edited January 11, 2016 by throwawayaccount

[Ben414]

23 hours ago, throwawayaccount said:

Given your example, I think admissions committees who are doing their jobs would account for the fact that black applicants would tend to do a little worse on the GRE. If they didn't, that would definitely be discriminatory. And I'm sure there are programs who do that kind of thing. Now, in this case, I think programs ought to view disabled folks' work experience in a different light: namely that it's more difficult for a disabled person to have the same work history. If they do that, I suppose there's no problem. Do they do that? I'm not sure. Based on some of the programs that pretty much require experience, I kind of doubt it.

I don't think you understood what my arguments were.

You have still yet to posit a convincing argument why this form of discrimination is bad. If work experience has a good correlation with an applicant's future ability to fulfill the goals of the institution, why shouldn't it be a factor that is considered equally among all applicant since the institution wants to best further its goal? I'm not saying these reasons don't exist--some possible example might be diversity or making up for historical discrimination--but you still have not made this argument.

And you have yet to give an argument as to where it should end that is based off why that discrimination is bad. People with rich parents who coddled them will have a more difficult time finding the motivation to focus on their schoolwork. Should admissions not require any academic prerequisites? As of now, your argument states that as long as any group of people do worse than another group because of the characteristics of their group, then it shouldn't be used for admissions. Surely you can see the issue with this?

22 hours ago, throwawayaccount said:

That's an inclusive way to reconcile the fact that good MPA graduates need experience with the truth that not every good MPA applicant already has that experience.

How are you defining a "good MPA applicant" that doesn't have experience? By GRE or GPA? By their coursework? By motivation to pursue the public good? By their writing ability in a few essays? By their letters of recommendation? I can't think of any possible admissions criteria that doesn't have some correlation with race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or socioeconomic status.

In case people get the wrong idea, I like the idea that education should be more inclusive and that schools need to be considering if their admissions process uses unnecessary criteria. However, I fail to see how ignoring work experience specifically is a practical or preferable option. Work experience gives students beneficial experience that improves other student's educational experience through interactions with each other, gives the person a clearer idea of what they want to do post-graduation and how they will do it--important for a short 2 year degree, and gives them the work skills that you can't pick up with an internship. I think great work experience should be a large "plus" for someone's admission, so when you're looking at the elite schools with many elite applicants it's natural that work experience would become a distinguishing factor even while the other factors were still important.

[TakeruK]

1 hour ago, Ben414 said:

However, I fail to see how ignoring work experience specifically is a practical or preferable option. 

I don't think anyone argued for ignoring work experience in evaluating graduate student candidates? There is a difference between not requiring it and completely ignoring it.

[Ben414]

11 hours ago, TakeruK said:

I don't think anyone argued for ignoring work experience in evaluating graduate student candidates? There is a difference between not requiring it and completely ignoring it.

But schools don't require it. The most competitive school--Princeton--matriculates multiple applicants every year who have no work experience. Work experience is a huge "plus," but it is not a requirement to any school I know of. The reason the vast majority of matriculants at the top schools have work experience is because many applicants have good profiles so work experience becomes a defining factor at the margins because it's valued highly. Even if you go down to the level of UChicago,15-20% of their incoming class has no work experience.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Ben414