Colorism: Ubiquitous Yet Understudied

We agree whole-heartedly with Ruggs et al. (2013) call to focus more research attention on the workplace experiences of marginalized employees. Indeed, the authors raised many valid points concerning the needed contributions of industrial and organizational (I–O) psychology to both research and public policy as it relates to marginalized groups. However, we believe that the authors also missed an opportunity to highlight the workplace discrimination experienced by those individuals who are marginalized by their darker skin tones. This form of discrimination is more commonly known as colorism. Subsequently, our commentary focuses on defining this form of discrimination that is not well known among I–O psychologists, explaining why our field should be concerned with studying colorism, and making recommendations regarding how our field can better study colorism, affect jurisprudence on the issue, and ameliorate colorism's effects in workplace settings.