It’s not often that a successful discrimination tribunal makes national headlines but this one has for all the right or wrong reasons, depending on how you look at it, as the claimant is a straight white male.
The article explains that due to a poor use of positive discrimination in the recruitment process the straight white male wasn’t offered a job with the Cheshire Police Force, despite passing all the tests, due to a biased selection process.
And he was absolutely right to go to tribunal. Legally he was unfairly discriminated against and, as the first case of it’s kind, this is a landmark ruling. But should we stop to think about how many successful discrimination cases made by someone with a protected characteristic don’t make it to the national news. Or worse, why don’t we read about the many times those with a protected characteristics are discriminated against in the same way but don’t have the means or confidence to challenge it.
Which ever way you look at it, this case has highlighted the difficulties when adopting a positive discrimination policy to attract diversity. It also has the potential to open the debate of how organisations look at the way they attract candidates as whole.