We tracked whether hotel employees responded and also analyzed the content of the emails from those who did respond. Overall, hotel employees were significantly more likely to respond to inquiries from people who had typically white names than from those who had typically black and Asian names. Hotel employees provided 20 percent more restaurant recommendations to white than to black or Asian people. Our research suggests that this belief — that a nonwhite person cannot or will not be a legitimate customer — can indeed worsen discrimination in service delivery. These results are in line with the recent incident at Starbucks: We see that service workers do not apply the rule that every person is a potential customer deserving the same level of service.

Source: New York Times April 21, 2018 00:22 UTC