Employment tribunal | Judge calls ginger boss who likened his bullying to racial discrimination an 'ally'

A Job Centre has been reprieved following complaints for comparing his experience of being bullied for having ginger hair to facing racial discrimination as a black person.

The ruling came in response to allegations from a black Job Centre employee, Alex Ujah, against his manager, Robert Rance, for race, harassment and disability discrimination when Rance said he had also experienced discrimination as a child due to his ginger hair colour.

Ujah then accused Rance of an “orchestrated succession of racist micro-aggressions" and was amazed to hear his manager comparing his own experience to “400 years of denigration and slavery”.

However, a judge ruled that the comparison was a way the boss was attempting to empathise with his colleague as an “ally”, and so was not in breach of any equality laws.