Dr. Reuben May has conducted what is known as an audit pair study – usually used in housing discrimination cases where a White person, a Black person, and a Latino/a person were to portray the same background story and same occupation to see if each person received different information regarding the house was due to their race – to use in a nightlife environment instead.
He dressed two Black men, two White men, and two Latino men – one male in “conformist” clothing and the other male in “thug” clothing – and trained the auditors how to act when confronted by bouncers, especially to avoid violence between the auditors and bouncers.
Dr. May and his team found that African Americans were denied access a little more than one in ten visits: Every ten nightlife establishments that they had gone to were rejected for “dress code violations,” whereas their White and Latino counterparts were denied access in 1 in 20 visits. Dr. May concluded, all else being equal, African American men are twice as likely than White men and Latino men to experience discrimination in attempts to gain access to urban nightlife.
On Feb. 22, the Black History Month Committee at Parkland College invited Dr. Reuban May to discuss the experience of Black Americans getting dress coded in urban nightlife in his lecture ‘Dress Codes and Other Exclusionary Practices in Urban Nightlife.’
(Photo credit: Andrew Bui)
Dr. May provided background with discussions of his studies, like their relationship to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and suggests the addressing of exclusionary practices in nightlife.
He has been conducting a study since 2002, speaking to bartenders, patrons of nightlife, and bar and nightclub managers because of his curiosity about what they thought having fun meant to them, and how Black people are being treated in their industry.
(Photo credit: Andrew Bui)
His observations during his studies were that public spaces are either helping respective race relations or establishing boundaries between racial groups, particularly between Black and White – known to Dr. May as “social capsules.”
Black men report having:
- Observed and experienced nightlife establishments creating discriminatory dress codes that identify popularly Black fashion styles to block their access.
- Dressed like their White counterparts and still getting dress coded.
(Photo credit: Andrew Bui)
Dr. Reuben May is the Florian Znaiecki Professorial Scholar, a Professor of Sociology, and a Department Head at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A Ph.D. graduate from the University of Chicago, Dr. May has been a fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and was named a finalist for the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching. He is known for his works surrounding Community and Urban Sociology, Racial and Ethnic Minorities, and Race Gender and Class.
To reach Dr. Reuban May for questions or inquiries:
Dr. Reuben A. Buford May
(217) 300-6960
rabm@illinois.edu
To read about Dr. May’s research, reference a sample of his work entitled Discrimination and Dress Codes in Urban Nightlife.
