Earlier this month, a Korean Christian university shocked the international community when it stated that it would not be accepting homosexual applicants for their English teaching positions. Not long after, the BBC reported that an Irish teacher named Katie Mulrennan was turned down when applying for a teaching job in Korea due to Irish stereotypes and The Korea Observer recently wrote that American teacher Sean Jones was rejected for being black.

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Mulrennan applied for a teaching job via Craigslist only to receive an email from a recruiter saying that because of the "[alcoholic] nature of [her] kind (Irish)," she was being turned down.

Mulrennan could not believe the response and reported the advertisement to Craigslist. She has since found a job, however, the discriminatory attitude towards foreign teachers are becoming more and more apparent with this example.

On November 17, The Korea Observer reported that American Sean Jones experienced discrimination while on a job hunt. On November 10, he received a text from his recruiter that stated, "Hey Sean. Sorry they just told me they actually want a white teacher." Two days later, he received a Facebook message from another recruiter that read, "I am sorry. I just found out today that my school is one of the ones that won't hire black people."

Jones expressed his frustration to The Korea Observer, saying, "Regardless of my two plus years of experience, TEFL certification, great references and the ability to speak intermediate Korean, I was turned down before even given an opportunity to speak with them."

He was baffled by the fact that Korean schools expressed their preference for white teachers over black teachers, saying, "This is telling students that black people are bad and white people are good. Why should white people get all the privileges?" He added, "White privilege is not right. We all deserve an equal chance."

Jones continued to discuss Korea's glaring problem of discrimination, not only in terms of employment restrictions, but also in that certain places that even have signs that say, "No foreigners."

Although a representative from Butler Child Academy who rejected Jones stated that she had to because the children can get intimidated by unfamiliar strangers, Jones points out that by filtering out certain applicants based on looks and characteristics that differ from that of a white person, they were giving children a flawed portrayal of the western world. 

He stated, "Even though they are adjusting to what parents want, they are responsible for giving the students a true view of what western culture is truly like," suggesting that Korean schools need to stop pretending that western culture is only limited to the image of the white American person.