In the early going of this presidential campaign, I remember discussing with a friend the challenge of the candidacies of Senator Obama and Senator Clinton. "We're basically down to betting whether Americans will be more racist or more misogynistic."

What has followed has been discussions about the fabled Bradley Effect, the importance of Senator Clinton's tears, and the quandary of the least-popular front-runner being a southern white male.

So I don't know for whose campaign this Slate item should be more reassuring. One study looked at the behaviors of employers:

More recently, economists have turned their attention to the subtler question of how to detect discrimination in labor markets. That women or racial minorities are paid less suggests discrimination but does not prove it, even if the statisticians make every effort to adjust for other differences such as part-time work or different choices of jobs.

One solution to the ambiguity is a random audit. A recent example was carried out by economists Sendhil Mullainathan and Marianne Bertrand. They generated about 5,000 fake job applications and used a computer to add, at random, distinctively black or white names. The employers who received the applications systematically favored the Gregs and the Emilys over the LaTonyas and the Jamals. Perhaps even more perniciously, they paid attention to the qualifications of (apparently) white applicants, but did not notice the difference between mediocre black applicants and excellent ones.

Ironically, the item goes on to outline the successes of organizations which hire such minorities are more successful (though possibly because they such employees less). So for Democratic voters, a chance to defy these bad behaviors. And of course, for America, a chance to run a check on these findings come November.