'White for decades to come' | Is positive discrimination necessary in the fight for diversity?

Positive discrimination refers to treating someone who is 'different' in a positive way, but often refers to appointing someone from an underrepresented group based on their identity more than than their skills or ability.

Even though positive discrimination can have negative effects and be highly controversial, some say it’s necessary in creating significant and meaningful diversity in the workforce. Yet, positive discrimination is unlawful in the UK.

According to the government website ‘recruiting or promoting a person solely because they have a relevant protected characteristic (without regard to the legal criteria)’ is unlawful, while ‘setting quotas (as opposed to targets) to recruit or promote a particular number or proportion of people with protected characteristics irrespective of merit’ is also considered wrong.

For example, RAF recently faced legal action for unfairly penalising white men in their D&I quota which aimed to increase the number of women and ethnic minorities, this included a quota of 40% of the workforce to be women and 20% of the force to be from a minority background. As a result, the pressure to meet these targets resulted in ‘unlawful, positive discrimination.’