At the Tipping Point: Race and Gender Discrimination in a Common Economic Transaction

Abstract

This Article examines the ubiquitous, multibillion-dollar practice of tipping as a vehicle for race and gender discrimination and as a case study of the role that organizations play in producing and promoting unequal treatment. The unique structure of tipped service encounters provides opportunities and incentives for both customers and servers to discriminate against one another However, neither customers nor servers are likely to find legal redress for the kinds ofdiscrimination that are most likely to occur in tipped service transactions because many of the same features of the transaction that promote discrimination also stand in the way of legal accountability for the discrimination that results. Moreover while tipped service transactions directly involve just the customer and server they take place within an organizational framework that is created by a third party-the firm that sells to the customer and employs the server That framework facilitates discriminatory bias in the decisions of customers and servers and encourages the firm to make decisions that reinforce the discriminatory dynamics of the service encounter Further, the "triangular" structure of the relationship among firm, customer, and server obscures the firm ' role in producing discriminatory outcomes and protects the firm against liability. Close examination of discrimination in tipped service encounters reveals the importance of supporting a newer, structural approach to antidiscrimination law that looks beyond individual decision making.

Black–White Earnings Gap among Restaurant Servers: A Replication, Extension, and Exploration of Consumer Racial Discrimination in Tipping

“…Racial discrimination in terms and conditions of employment is unlawful in the United States under Title VII in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Supreme Court ruled in Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971) that this statute prohibits business policies and practices that have a disparate impact on protected classes even if those policies and practices appear at face value to be neutral and are not intended to discriminate (Twomey ; Yinger ). If consumers do tip on the basis of race (or sex), then the practice of tipping may have an adverse impact that the courts would deem unlawful (Wang ). This means that restaurants and restaurant chains relying upon tipping to partially compensate their employees could someday be subject to expensive class‐action lawsuits alleging racial discrimination in business practices (Ayres, 2008; Lynn et al.…”

“…This means that restaurants and restaurant chains relying upon tipping to partially compensate their employees could someday be subject to expensive class‐action lawsuits alleging racial discrimination in business practices (Ayres, 2008; Lynn et al. ; Wang ). Information about whether, when, and how servers’ race effects consumers’ tipping behavior would help restaurant managers and other business operators that rely on tipping as a source of employee compensation to better assess this risk.…”

Economic Motivations and Moral Controls Regulating Discrimination Against Black and Hispanic Diners

“…While there are many observable characteristics that servers might use to predict customers' tips (e.g., age, gender, dress, party size; see McCall and Lynn ), existing research has implicated dark skin to be a particularly powerful cue denoting poor tipping at the end of the service encounter (Brewster ). In other words, customers' dark skin appears to function as a “master status” that is automatically associated with the auxiliary trait of “bad tipper” (Rusche and Brewster ; Brewster , ; Wang ). Thus, when servers encounter patrons of color, their dark skin color acts as a cognitive shortcut allowing servers to bypass all other relevant demographic characteristics and arrive at an a priori expectation of receiving a poor tip and, likewise, the appropriateness of providing commensurately poor service.…”

“…Dining away from home is another common consumption activity in which racial minorities experience discrimination (Siegelman ; Dirks and Rice ; Perry ; Rusche and Brewster ; Brewster ; Brewster and Rusche ; Wang ). For example, a 2001 nationally representative poll of consumers found that 21 percent of the 1,003 African Americans surveyed reportedly experienced discriminatory treatment while dining out in the past month (Gallup Poll Social Audit ; see also Siegelman ).…”

“…Scholars often posit that such race‐based discrimination while dining out stems from common sentiments among servers that African Americans and Hispanics tend to be poor tippers relative to their white counterparts (Dirks and Rice ; Noll and Arnold ; Rusche and Brewster ; Brewster and Mallinson ; McCall and Lynn ; Brewster and Rusche ; Wang ). Further, servers' perceptions of interracial tipping differences appear to be at least partially grounded in reality, as blacks/Hispanics have been shown to tip relatively less than whites (cf.…”