Tipping seems as American as apple pie: at full-service restaurants in the United States, customers hand over $42 billion in tips to some 2.6 billion waiters per year. So when some of the nation’s most popular restaurants, from Per Se in New York to Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, divested from the tip in favor of a service charge and comprehensive wages, some diners were shocked and confused. In his New York Times piece, restaurant critic Pete Wells explained the anti-tip movement to his readers: “[Tipping] is irrational, outdated, ineffective, confusing, prone to abuse and sometimes discriminatory.” The final claim packs a powerful punch. If tipping is discriminatory, then surely it is un-American. But just how does tipping discriminate?

Plenty of research shows that people have an explicit preference for their own race in most consumer contexts. For example, Americans are more likely to buy a doll, pick a cashier, and enjoy a commercial that features someone of their own race. With tipping, however, this preference doesn’t hold true. According to Michael Lynn, a tipping expert at Cornell University, if a White server and a Black server provide the same quality service at a restaurant, both Black and White customers tend to tip the White server more. So what makes tipping an exception? One likely theory is “aversive racism,” a term coined by psychologists Samuel Gaertner and John Dovidio in the 1980s. Aversive racists consciously endorse equality for all, but subconsciously feel negatively about Black people. Lynn has determined that tipping is indeed a partially subconscious process. Subconscious racism also tends to manifest in restaurants because the customer can always justify his decision on the server’s slightest inattention, not his or her race. Distressingly, Implicit Association Tests (IATs) show that many Whites and Blacks do have an automatic preference for Whites as a whole, so aversive racism appears to play a role in tipping decisions for both races.

In this context, tipping is clearly problematic; whether it is legal is less clear. Lynn is skeptical, and he encourages restaurant owners to exercise caution. Many food servers work for at as little as $2.13/hour, because the government expects the workers to make up the difference in tips. If tips are legitimate compensation, and the customers distribute them unfairly on the basis of race, then technically the restaurant owners (not the customers) have violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employee discrimination. If racial discrimination does not particularly move a restaurant owner, then a potential lawsuit might be an extra incentive for him to end tipped labor.

The servers are not the only victims in this evaluative process; in fact, servers tend to discriminate against the patrons in comparatively more explicit and aggressive ways. Sociologist Zachary Brewster of North Carolina State University conducted field studies and surveys of food servers in over 200 chain restaurants, primarily in the South and the Midwest. He discovered that most servers, even Blacks, avoided waiting on Black tables because they were perceived as “bad tippers.” The workers have colorful ways to describe their racial profiling: if too many black people are at a Denny’s, for example, the manager may complain about a “blackout,” and discourage the hostess from seating any more. Could this obvious racism possibly be based on truth? Replicated studies show that Black people actually do tip less than Whites on average. Lynn’s research suggests that this is partially due to a cultural lack of familiarity with the “standard” tipping percentage, and suggests restaurants post guidelines. Brewster thinks something more insidious is also at work. The cycle works like this: a server imbibes a racist message. Then a Black patron tips poorly, and the server probably attributes the tip to the customer’s race more than anything else. She then discriminates against the next Black customer that enters the dining area. When this customer notices her poor service, he will tip her poorly, thus perpetuating the cycle.

We can theorize on why Black people tip less than Whites, but we cannot debate or excuse the racial profiling. Does this behavior violate Title II of the Civil Right Act (1964), which guarantees “full and equal enjoyment” for all races at food establishments? These are questions that we have to ask, because even though we are beyond Jim Crow, both Black servers and Black patrons suffer from discrimination at American restaurants. The common denominator on both sides of the table is the tip. A guaranteed service charge, and/or comprehensive wages, would likely improve both the quality of service for Black customers, and the compensation for Black workers. Someday, maybe social justice, not tipping, will become as American as apple pie.

*Note: The racial labels in this op-ed have limitations. There are obviously more than two racial identifications in America, but I chose to focus on Blacks and Whites because most of the research presents this dichotomy.

I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this assignment.

–Katie Carlson

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brewster, Zachary W. “Racialized Customer Service in Restaurants: A Quantitative Assessment of the Statistical Discrimination Explanatory Framework.” Sociological Inquiry 82.1 (2012): 3-28. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.

Dovidio, John F., Samuel E. Gaertner, Kerry Kawakami, and Gordon Hodson. “Why Can’t We Just Get Along? Interpersonal Biases and Interracial Distrust.” Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology 8.2 (2002): 88-102. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.

Juni, Samuel, Robert Brannon, and Michelle M. Roth. “Sexual And Racial Discrimination In Service-Seeking Interactions: A Field Study In Fast Food And Commercial Establishments.” Psychological Reports 63.1 (1988): 71-76. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.

Lynn, Michael. “The Contribution of Norm Familiarity to Race Differences in Tipping Behavior: A Replication and Extension.” Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research (2014): Tippingresearch.com. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.

Lynn, Michael, Michael Sturman, Christie Ganley, Elizabeth Adams, Mathew Douglas, and Jessica Mcneil. “Consumer Racial Discrimination in Tipping: A Replication and Extension.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 38.4 (2008): 1045-1060. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.

Surowiecki, James. “Check, Please.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 5 Sept. 2005. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.

Wachter, Paul. “Why Tip?” The New York Times. The New York Times, 11 Oct. 2008. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.

Wells, Pete. “Leaving a Tip: A Custom in Need of Changing?” The New York Times. The New York Times, 03 Sept. 2013. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.