IBM Apologizes For 'Racial Slurs' On Recruitment Website

Tech giant IBM issued an apology Monday after its recruitment webpages had "racial slurs" in its drop-down menu. In online application forms for positions within the company, applicants were asked their ethnicity and among the options to choose from were Yellow, Mulatto and Black.

The incident came to light after a jobseeker applying for a technical role in IBM contacted the Register about the contents of the forms earlier this month. The jobseeker was stunned to see the slurs listed for a mandatory input field labeled: "Please state your ethnic group."

"Naturally, I was shocked to see this on an application from what I generally consider to be a respected and top technology company," the job hopeful, who was not named, told the Register. "It made me feel as though there are biases and prejudices that exist, that may go unchecked or unnoticed, that may even be directly contrary to what the company as a whole tries to present as their values and image. Also, the fact that it is 2019, and to see something like this, blows my mind."

Among the words Caucasian, Black, Indigenous, Yellow, was the term Mulatto, which is an outdated and offensive term used to describe mixed race people with black and white parents. The use of the term "Yellow" referring to people of East Asian origin has been historically associated with violence, discrimination and exclusion.

"Our recruiting websites temporarily and inappropriately solicited information concerning job applicant ethnicity," Edward Barbini, IBM’s vice president of external relations, told the Register on Monday night, apologizing to those affected by the contents of the form. "Those questions were removed immediately when we became aware of the issue and we apologize. IBM hiring is based on skills and qualifications. We do not use race or ethnicity in the hiring process and any responses we received to those questions will be deleted."

"IBM has long rejected all forms of racial discrimination and we are taking appropriate steps to make sure this does not happen again,” Barbini added.