Two wrongs don’t make a right……
by Philip
……….Or so I learnt when I was growing up. The most controversial measure in the Equality Bill is the proposal to make a limited form of positive discrimination lawful.
The proposal is to allow employers to discriminate in favour of under represented groups where two candidates for selection or promotion are equally well qualified.
Aside from the philisophical point about using discrimination to combat discrimination, employment lawyers can foresee that this proposal will lead to more disputes not fewer. Here are a few problems:
1.Where two female candidates apply for a promotion, one heterosexual one lesbian- will it be permissible to discriminate in favour of the lesbian if the fact or perception is that lesbians are under represented at that particular level? If so will employees game the system by lying about their sexual orientation to get on?
2. If one black and one white employee are tied in a redundancy selection exercise will it be permissible to use race as a tie breaker?
3. If two pupils, one muslim, one christian, are tied in a school entrance exam, say an 11+, will it be permissible for race to be a tie breaker on the basis of under representation?
As you can see this has the potential of opening a huge can of worms and be detrimental to race relations. Surely it’s better to insist that employers recruit, promote and retain on merit regardless of their employees’ gender, orientation or race? Isn’t that the ideal the government should be aspiring to? When will this social engineering end?
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