Jim Crow 2.0 prevails: US blinks in standoff with the World Bank

The Jim Crow laws were the laws of our land beginning in the late 1870s and ending in 1964. They institutionalized racial discrimination with a ‘separate but equal’ legal doctrine in the Southern States. In the relatively more liberal North, segregation was de facto. Be it de jure or de facto, the separation of the races was real enough, but their ‘equality’ was a bold lie. African Americans were born in dilapidated hospitals, schooled in rundown buildings, nursed in neglected clinics, and buried in separate cemeteries. They were segregated from cradle to grave into institutionalized inferiority. This was Jim Crow 1.0, America’s sinful social and economic construct of yester century.

Fast-forward to 2013 and walk two blocks west of the White House down Pennsylvania Avenue. You would come to the World Bank’s (WB) Main Complex, an enormous building housing the headquarters of the Bretton woods institution that boasts of being the second largest employer in Washington, next only to the federal government. To get there you would have to cross what has become an epitome of racism in our nation’s capital: “Apartheid Avenue,” a nickname for 18th Street. The street signifies a racial fault-line, rending the WB apart both physically and racially.

On the left of ‘Apartheid Avenue’ stands the Bank’s ‘J building’ that houses the African regional vice presidency where Blacks are segregated. To its right is a glittering edifice where the powers that be sit and where Blacks in offices are sparse. The practice of segregating Blacks in the Africa region is referred to as ‘ghettoization.’ Welcome to Jim Crow 2.0. Let us allow the WB to introduce itself in its own words:
1996: ‘Blacks make poor accountants and the department could not hire too many Blacks as the department would look like a ghetto. They should be kept in the Africa ghetto [‘J building.’"> ~ WB Director explaining in a public meeting why he was not hiring Black Professionals.
1998: ‘Interviews for African Working Papers revealed cultural prejudice among some WB managers, who rated Africans as unsophisticated and inferior.’ ~ A Memorandum by the WB’s Team for Racial Equality.
2003: ‘Blacks can only work in the Africa region. They can be more competitive there…Brazilians do not want to work with Blacks.’ ~ WB report, Enhancing Inclusion at the WB, Pages 66.
2005: The WB needs ‘to address seriously the issue of ‘ghettoization’ to ensure that diversity cuts across the institution as a whole.’ ~ Staff Association, Memo to the Personnel Committee of the WB Board of Directors.
2009: According to the WB, Black American professionals are underrepresented because of a shortage of qualified candidates... The Bank does not see the existing social science programs at the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as adequate in preparing students for professional placement at the WB. ~ A Report by Government Accountability Project (GAP), Page 20.
2012: The problem of racial discrimination as presented by Justice for Blacks is ‘very disturbing and saddening. It certainly is a very delicate and weighty matter and therefore requiring skillful strategizing to address it. I am not in a position to provide any feedback at this time… Almighty's guidance always…’ ~ A member of the WB Board of Directors, in an email reply to Justice for Blacks
The WB believes that equality of Blacks with other WB staff can only be achieved in the long term, requiring ‘skilful strategizing.’ In its 2009 report, the GAP noted with incredulity that the WB was of the opinion (as expressed by the Director of the Bank’s Diversity Office) that HBCUs need help ‘to create programs that would equip their students to be competent for WB work.’ Expressing the same mindset, in a 2009 video message, a retired WB senior vice president explained the Bank’s policy:

‘The first thing was to promote them in the Africa region. The second hurdle is that having seen them do well in Africa to convince other regions to accept them and to stop putting the screens of our clients that they may not deal with them very well.’

As a matter of institutional policy, regardless of their educational achievements and work experiences, Blacks are required to go through a thinly disguised racial screening process before they are allowed to peer into the veiled world beyond Apartheid Avenue. As a matter of practice, the overwhelming majority of them find themselves segregated in the J Building where they spend their entire professional careers. As a result, they are virtually shut out of the Bank’s strategic decision-making vice presidential units (VPUs). For example, in 2011, Africa accounted for 50 percent of the WB’s International Development Association funds. In contrast, in the same year, Blacks accounted for 2.4 percent of the professional cohort of the Development Economics VPU, none at a managerial level. Ironically, this is where the Bank’s poverty reduction and development policies that affect the destiny of Africa are formulated.

IMPORTED CASTE MASTERS IN A LEGAL NO MAN’S LAND

Six of the eight above-quoted derogatory WB statements were made by managers who hail from other countries to work for the WB. In general, the majority of the perpetrators of institutional racism seem to come from countries where a de facto caste system constitutes the social construct. Smuggled in with them is this culture of bigotry that regards Black people as ‘unsophisticated and inferior.’

Compounding the problem is that WB employees are denied legal redress. Because of the Bank’s status of immunity victims of discrimination are captive to an internal Tribunal. The internal justice system is seen as neither independent nor credible in addressing racial discrimination, as established by the US Government Accounting Office and the US Treasury (1999), the WB itself (1998 and 2003), the WB Staff Association (2005 and 2010), and GAP (2009 and 2011).
In a 2011 report, GAP stated ‘the Bank has created a deficient justice system that fails to comply with numerous international human rights standards.’ Having listed ‘serious rights violations and structural shortcomings,’ the report provided a number of recommendations, including giving staff access to independent external arbitration. The report highlighted this as ‘an option that has been suggested in US legislation and several studies commissioned by the WB itself.’

AFRICAN AMERICANS

Hard as it is to believe, the situation for African Americans is comparatively far worse. In 1978, in an op-ed article in the Washington Post, the late William Raspberry found only ‘three black Americans out of 619 American professionals.’ In 2009, there were only four African Americans out of over 1000 American professionals. A WB study notes, 32 percent of the Bank’s overall workforce is in the ‘secretarial ranks,’ what the Bank calls support staff. As a comparison, 47 percent of Africans are in the secretarial grades while the corresponding figure for African Americans is 75 percent! African Americans are effectively shut out of the professional ranks and are kept in secretarial positions, often as agency temps. The story of one such agency temp is illustrative:

Mainly as a temp, Ms. Hitch worked for the WB for 20 years. But despite a strong evaluation record and several performance awards, she was not able to secure a regular position. At one point, she was selected for a regular position, but she was never offered it. In her last attempt, she was short-listed for another position, but was not invited for an interview. She was ultimately interviewed after she inquired why she was not included in the list of interviewees and was subsequently selected as the most suitable candidate by an interviewing panel. This triggered an intervention from the department’s executive assistant, and a subsequent email from a senior HR officer to the hiring director:

‘I thought I should let you know the background of the African American only for your benefit when you finally get to make the hiring decision. She is about 57 years old and has been in the Bank about 20 years. For 18 years, she has been a temp… I believe in the department, we need young, dynamic staff who are quick starts and have the urge to go an extra mile.’

In his email, the senior HR officer mentioned a young Indian male as a suitable candidate and the position was ultimately given to him. Ms. Hitch filed racial, gender, and age discrimination charges before the Bank’s internal justice system. Her claims were summarily dismissed. She had to leave the Bank without a pension after devoting two decades of service to it. Had it not been for the Bank’s discriminatory practice that denied her a regular position early on, her 20 years of service could have guaranteed her about 75 percent of her salary as pension! Today at 66 years of age she works when she can to supplement her retirement. Adding insult to injury, part of her taxes ultimately goes to support the WB that is a recipient of tens of billions dollars in hard cash and guarantees from the US.

US BLINKS IN STANDOFF WITH THE WB

In 2005, the US passed the Lugar-Leahy Amendment, requiring that WB staff have access to ‘independent adjudicative bodies, including external arbitration.’ In 2010, the US Treasury approached the WB on behalf of a victim of racial discrimination requesting that it resolve the aggrieved staff’s then pending racial discrimination and related retaliation claims through external arbitration. The WB rejected the request and the Treasury sent the aggrieved staff a note stating:

‘Further engagement in your case with the Bank would not be productive… We remain interested in seeking to assure that the Bank provides a fair conflict resolution system for its employees, and are continuing to explore the possibility of pressing it to look harder at external arbitration…’

In December 2011, President Obama signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012, requiring the US to withhold approval for the WB's funding until the institution has made substantial progress in providing staff access to independent adjudicative bodies. Sadly, the WB treated both the Lugar-Leahy Amendment and the 2012 Consolidated Appropriations Act as mere bluffs and made it clear on the record that it has no intention of complying with any US law in regard to its relations with its staff. Our government blinked -- as WB officials expected.

There are two indisputable facts. First, the WB systematically discriminates against Blacks in general and African Americans in particular, and denies them access to a legal remedy in violation of the US Constitution. Second, our government is ‘responsible to uphold the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans.’ The two facts are irreconcilable. To allow the former (a serious violation of human rights) one has to ignore the later (the inalienable human rights of Blacks). That is what our government has done for nearly seven decades, since the WB opened its doors in 1946.

Currently, there are three requests for external arbitration submitted by victims of discrimination. The Bank has rejected them in clear violation of the aforementioned US laws. But the US Treasury that is charged to enforce the laws appears neither interested nor committed to enforcing them. The WB is on course to receive tens of billions of our tax dollars while remaining out of compliance with our laws. It behooves us to ask the question: ‘Would the Treasury have failed to enforce the laws had the victims of systemic discrimination and institutional ‘ghettoization’ been Asian Americans or Jewish Americans?’ The answer is obvious, but the question needed to be asked, nonetheless.

Phyllis Muhammad is co-chair of Justice for Blacks, a group consisting of current and former WB staff organised to end racial discrimination at the WB. She is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School. She can be reached at: [email protected]
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