selective enforcement leads to discrimination

Having rules that are infrequently enforced creates the malignant opportunity for them to be enforced unequally against certain groups. What brought this to mind was Google’s recent firing of Timnit Gebru, an esteemed Black AI researcher whose work challenged Google’s business model and who was critical of Google’s slow progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Google’s Head of AI justified her dismissal on the grounds of not following the publishing process, but current and former Googlers were quick to point out that these rules were never enforced in this way:

the easiest way to discriminate is to make stringent rules, then to decide when and for whom to enforce them. My submissions were always checked for disclosure of sensitive material, never for the quality of the literature review. (source)

This is such a lie. It was part of my job on the Google PR team to review these papers. Typically we got so many we didn’t review them in time or a researcher would just publish & we wouldn’t know until afterwards. We NEVER punished people for not doing proper process. (source)

In Policing

Examples abound in policing, but a clear, recent one is documented in the Department of Justice’s 2015 investigation of the Ferguson, MO police department in the wake of Michael Brown’s killing by the police. The report documents facts such as that 95% of arrests for jaywalking were against the city’s Black citizens. I’ve lived in cities for the past 16 years: everybody jaywalks and no one cares. But as the DOJ report on Ferguson shows, infrequently enforced laws like this provide cover for enacting explicit bias, as well as for those in power to prey on the most vulnerable for their own financial gain:

The municipal court does not act as a neutral arbiter of the law or a check on unlawful police conduct. Instead, the court primarily uses its judicial authority as the means to compel the payment of fines and fees that advance the City’s financial interests.

Justice isn’t just about which rules and laws exist, but for whose benefit—and against whom—they are actually enforced. systemic justice looks at not only the systems (e.g. rules) in place but the outcomes they produce.

What We Can Do

• Be on the lookout for rules, laws, and policies that aren’t being enforced, and advocate for either enforcing them or, more likely, auditing and removing these opportunities for discrimination.
• Speak up when you see a rule being enforced against someone else that hasn’t been enforced against you.
• When introducing a new rule (e.g. a new process or policy at work), plan for a feedback or reporting mechanism to understand whether and how the rule is being enforced.