White men who have personally experienced mistreatment at work, such as bullying, are more likely to realize that their organization does not always operate fairly. And that makes them more likely to recognize and report race and gender bias against their co-workers, I found in a recent study.

As a sociologist who researches workplace inequality, I wondered whether the way white men in the U.S. are treated at work might be related to whether they recognize sexist and racist incidents that harm their colleagues.

To find out, I analyzed data from over 11,000 federal employees, including 5,011 white men employed by 28 government agencies, collected for a survey that measures the government's progress toward eliminating personnel policy violations.

I found that although white men are mistreated less often than women and people of color, about 1 in 3 of them experienced some instance of bullying, intimidation or other form of harassment in the two years prior to the study. In comparison, 44% of white women, 49% of women of color and 35% of men of color experienced some form of harassment.

It turned out that white men who were targets of harassment were 70% more likely than other white men in their workplaces to recognize gender bias among their colleagues. They were 58% more likely to recognize bias against their racial or ethnic minority colleagues. They were also nearly twice as likely to have reported race and gender bias to their supervisors and colleagues when they witnessed it.

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