IBM job applicants outraged over racially insensitive labels

IBM was called out by job seekers for using racially insensitive labels in an online application, prompting an apology from the tech giant.

New York University computer science student Alex Gao said he felt offended after being forced to choose among ethnic categories including “yellow” and “mulatto” in applying for a software developer internship in the U.S.

“I was appalled to be asked on an IBM internship application to choose my ethnic group, and be given the choice of ‘yellow,’” Gao wrote on Twitter last week, posting a photo of the application, which included a drop-down menu asking job seekers to select their ethnic group.

International Business Machines Corp. has since removed the racially insensitive questions from the application. The 108-year-old Armonk, New York-based company has been working toward enhancing diversity in recent years and announced Tuesday that it has appointed retired Admiral Michelle Howard, the first African-American woman to command a U.S. Navy ship, to its board. Howard becomes the second African-American woman on the board.