Is this descrimination legal?

mattcanary

kwmlondon wrote: »

Excellent point. Good question.

My answer would be we should be looking very differently at the whole idea of how we interview people and assess success or potential.

When someone comes from a poor background they have not had the chance to earn the kind of academic achievements that someone from a private school would obtain easily.

If someone achieves two B grades from a school where the average is just a pass then they are a high achiever. If somebody gets an A level in night school while being employed full time then they are way more driven than somebody who gets the same grade as a teenager.

Where I work we made it a rule that every interview board had to have at least three people on it, and one needs to be a woman. Our rates of female appointments grew immediately as a result.

I worked in an engineering department where they deliberately recruited 5 women academics with posts that were only open to female applicants (some men still applied, natch). That was four years ago. They've gone from 15% female students to 45% now. One piece of "sexist" recruitment has resulted in a balancing of the intake of students and despite no further "discriminatory" recruitment they now have a pretty even number of male and female applications for positions, which is a huge achievement in engineering.

Oh, sure, some men will have been naffed off when they saw that advert, and maybe some excellent people were lost to rival institutions but those men will have easily found other jobs and the women that were recruited met all the standards required of them. If anything, they have proven to be the most driven and high-performing members of the department.

My experience of positive discrimination is overwhelmingly that it works.

Dear oh dear, oh dear. It is really worrying if we have people in high-powered positions in the UK with this attitude.


My point was not that people should be favoured by employers / universities whoever if they come from a poorer background. The person judged best for the job should be recruited - whether they are white, black, rich, poor, male, female, straight, gay, an earthling or an alien.


Of course, it is not an easy job for a recruiter to judge who would be the best choice for any job. And doubtless they get it wrong sometimes.


That is not an excuse for introducing artificial factors to try and get rid of any bias you feel exists, whether that be a real bias or not.




By your sense of logic, white males should be favoured when it comes to dentistry positions. Should recruiters be doing that? Or does it only apply to trendy causes; people that the media think are discriminated against?

kwmlondon

lukerichardson40 wrote: »

It is most definitely not the most logical thing to do! One group of people perceive to have being wronged by another group of people... so in turn we will do the same to them? That is not logical, that is playground pettiness.

A better solution... treat everyone fair regardless of race,sex etc.

To balance, as I pointed out before regarding the difference in race of trainee doctors; if an advert stated 'WANTED. Trainee doctors. White British males only please' would that be acceptable because there is evidenceto show they are a minority in this area?

The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction now and it isn’t right no matter how you try to justify it.

The pendulum is still totally favouring white people and there's no chance of it doing anything other than that in the near future. I suspect that anyone who feels that as a white person they are discriminated against in this country they are simply not very successful in life and are looking for someone else to blame when they've had way more than their fair share of opportunities and they've totally failed to take advantage of them.

Bantex_2

kwmlondon wrote: »

The pendulum is still totally favouring white people and there's no chance of it doing anything other than that in the near future. I suspect that anyone who feels that as a white person they are discriminated against in this country they are simply not very successful in life and are looking for someone else to blame when they've had way more than their fair share of opportunities and they've totally failed to take advantage of them.

I would suggest that a lot of people from ethnic minorities use the same excuse for their own lack of achievment. Seems to be a lot more prevalent amongst some cultures than others.

Mishomeister

kwmlondon wrote: »

and maybe some excellent people were lost to rival institutions but those men will have easily found other jobs and the women that were recruited met all the standards required of them. If anything, they have proven to be the most driven and high-performing members of the department.

How can you be sure they(men) did find the job and they are not on Job Seekers allowance now?

kwmlondon wrote: »

My experience of positive discrimination is overwhelmingly that it works.

Would those men who missed out on this job just because of a different thing between the legs agree with you. Would the ones of them that are now in a much lower paid jobs agree that the positive descrimination is good?

Mishomeister

Bantex wrote: »

I would suggest that a lot of people from ethnic minorities use the same excuse for their own lack of achievment. Seems to be a lot more prevalent amongst some cultures than others.

This is simply BRILLIANT pont.

lukerichardson40

kwmlondon wrote: »

I suspect that anyone who feels that as a white person they are discriminated against in this country they are simply not very successful in life and are looking for someone else to blame when they've had way more than their fair share of opportunities and they've totally failed to take advantage of them.

Wow!

So if you are white and are being discriminated against (as the op showed) it is your own fault... but if you are a minority being discriminated against it is the white man opressing them? Is that what youre saying?

mattcanary

lukerichardson40 wrote: »

Wow!

So if you are white and are being discriminated against (as the op showed) it is your own fault... but if you are a minority being discriminated against it is the white man opressing them? Is that what youre saying?

It is amazing how many white, middle-class, heterosexual males think that they as a group are inferior human beings.
It's a very strange thing!

lukerichardson40

I'm a white male, probably middle class... I dont think anyone is inferior to anyone else... what do you mean?

mattcanary

lukerichardson40 wrote: »

I'm a white male, probably middle class... I dont think anyone is inferior to anyone else... what do you mean?

kwmlondon is white, male and middle-class. I assume he is straight too.


Yet he seems to think that other people are superior to him, because he thinks they have had to overcome greater odds than he has (just because they are female, black, three-legged, whatever).


You don't hear black people saying that white people are better than they are, do you? And why should they.

lukerichardson40

Quite right! Why should anyone for that matter. The long and short of this, I believe, is that it should not be right to eclude any race/sex whatever for the benefit of another... that is any kind of 'ism' in its purest form... to benefit one at the expense of another.