Before the return of Voldemort, were there fewer Muggle-borns in the Ministry of Magic than would be expected? Do we have enough data to know?

Question

In The Deathly Hallows, we see the Muggle-Born Registration Commission at work. The Ministry

has issued an invitation to every so-called Muggle-born to present themselves for interview by the newly appointed Muggle-born Registration Commission

and we read about benches of Muggle-born wizards and witches there, whilst others have gone into hiding with their families.

Out of pure-blood, Muggle-born and half-blood, Muggle-born seems statistically the least common, but not vanishingly rare.

Harry was very relieved to find out that he wasn't miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like him, hadn't had any idea that they were witches and wizards.

We know from Ron that

Most wizards these days are half-blood anyway. If we hadn’t married Muggles we’d’ve died out

but the half-blood group definition encompasses quite a few options for parentage.

Prior to the M-BRC, other than a few bigoted families, there doesn't seem that much distinction between pureblood/half-blood/Muggle-borns — once they're at Hogwarts they're treated the same. Snape says

No. It doesn’t make any difference.

to Lily.

So I'd expect them to end up with roughly the same distribution across jobs.

The MoM is a major employer in the wizarding world, but I can't think of any adult Muggle-borns who work there. I accept that some of the women might be at home with children, ruling them out of working, but we meet enough MoM employees that there should be one or two.

Ideally I'd like to know if there are any named (or directly referenced e.g. X's mother) grown up Muggle-borns who work at the MoM, as well as a rough numerical analysis if that's possible from the canon data available.

Answer 1

Yes, there are a few Muggle-borns in the MOM:

• Dirk Cresswell- Head of the the Goblin Liaison Office.

  "And there was Dirk Cresswell in the year after Lily Evans, too — now Head of the Goblin Liaison Office, of course — another Muggle-born, a very gifted student, and still gives me excellent inside information on the goings-on at Gringotts!"

• Hermione Granger- Minister of Magic

• Nobby Leach- The first ever Muggle-born Minister of Magic.

Answer 2

There is no definite data for this. I do think that there was a good amount of Muggle-borns in the MOM because they are a good percentage of the British Wizarding population, but not as much as you would think. I am sure, on the other hand, that there were more Muggle-borns in the MOM after Hermione Granger was in office. J.K. Rowling said in a web-chat interview on Bloomsbury,

Katieleigh: Does hermione still continue to do work with spew and is life any better for house elves!

J.K. Rowling: Hermione began her post-Hogwarts career at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures

J.K. Rowling: where she was instrumental in greatly improving life for house-elves and their ilk. She then moved (despite her jibe to Scrimgeour) to the Dept. of Magical Law Enforcement

J.K. Rowling: where she was a progressive voice who ensured the eradication of oppressive, pro-pureblood laws.

Due to said eradication or pro-pureblood laws, it would be easier for Muggle-borns to not only get into the MOM, but also be more confident that they wouldn't be persecuted.

By the way this is all speculation, mostly because there is not definite data to this question.

Bloomsbury web-chat interview link - http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/07/30/j-k-rowling-web-chat-transcript/

Answer 3

Blood status was considered a private matter (or maybe "don't ask, don't tell")

Prior to the return of Voldemort, most wizards and witches appear not to have discussed their blood status openly in the workplace. Admittedly, there were some pure-bloods who were very proud of their status and boasted thereof, but most people did not consider it particularly relevant:

• When Bob Ogden of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement visits the Gaunts (as shown in HBP through Dumbledore's pensieve) to inform them that Morfin is charged with abusing a Muggle and must attend a disciplinary hearing, Malvolo (Morfin's father), a blood-status snob, asks Ogden about his blood status, in response to which Ogden says "that is neither here nor there" -- so, even before Voldemort was born, outright discrimination on blood status was becoming unacceptable (or, at the very least, if discrimination thereon were acceptable, there was a sort of "don't ask, don't tell");
• At Hogwarts, discussion of blood status did occur, but, with the exception of CoS (when there was widespread fear that Muggle-borns were in particular danger), tended to be confined to snobs (such as Malfoy and, on one occasion during his own schooldays, Snape) lobbing "Mudblood" insults and occasional expressions of surprise that a particularly gifted student (such as Hermione Grainger and Lily Evans) were muggle-born; and
• On occasions when somebody does lob a "Mudblood" insult, it tends to elicit very strong anger from the target and from bystanders.

Based on this, I am inclined to assume that:

• There probably was some widespread prejudice/stereotype that Muggle-borns were generally, but not necessarily, less capable (Slughorn expresses such thoughts early in HBP); but
• There was no official policy of discrimination against Muggle-borns at the MoM; yet
• Since there was nothing to be gained from disclosing Muggle-born blood status, and there was a risk of unofficial discrimination (it is not clear whether such unofficial discrimination would have been illegal... the canon does not talk much about employment law, beyond a brief reference to some Umbridge legislation which had the effect of making it very difficult for werewolves to find employment, enacted at some point before PoA -- in DH, Lupin mentions that he was struggling to find employment before Dumbledore gave him a job at Hogwarts), it stands to reason that many Muggle-borns at the MoM would have opted to stay quiet about their blood status (hence a "don't ask, don't tell" paradigm); and therefore
• There were probably more Muggle-borns working at the MoM than the known cases described (and keep in mind that we know about Dirk Cresswell because Slughorn mentions the fact -- there is no evidence that Cresswell boasted of his Muggle-born status), and many of them would have stayed quiet despite the invitation of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission (the wizarding world was not, on the whole, very efficient at verifying blood status).

Answer 4

We don't have anything in the books that give a straight answer (since Harry being a teenager and having a madman after him wouldn't care to ask) but some fanfiction writers like to think they are low ranking employees due to bias and such, I don't think that is the case since there are not that many wizards to have that kind of discrimination, specially since the wealthiest of pure blood like Malfoy don't actually work.