Hello. On working to this session in which we're going to look at the topic of discrimination, discrimination is quite a big topic. There are nine different protected characteristics, seven different forms of discrimination. There's an awful lot that we could be talking about. I am going to tell you about the seven different forms and the nine different protected characteristics. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to focus in on the areas that are that little bit more complicated and look at them in a bit more detail. But let's start at the beginning. What is the law now? This is one of those areas where, actually, the range of law that we need to remember is greatly reduced. There is one thing, the equality. At 2010 now, in 2010 when the Equality Act was introduced that were 11 9 major pieces of legislation and 100 minor pieces of legislation on discrimination had got a little bit messy. It grown over the years, been added to here and there on, so it was all replaced by the equality at 2010. Now it's important to note this because you may see reference T things like the disability discrimination that in 1995 or the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 they've all gone. When the Equality Act was introduced, it replaced all those pieces of legislation when we just refer to the Equality Act 2010. So that's the law. Now what about the protected characteristics? Now this is a really important point because there are nine protected characteristics. We're going to talk you three them in a moment, but let's just see what they are. We can see them on the screen age, disability, marital status and civil partnership, maternity, pregnancy, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation and transgender status. Now, why is this important? Because if somebody is treated less favourably for another reason that isn't on this list, then they can't make a claim of discrimination. Very recently, there is a case in the paper reported over an organization that had decided, rather than penalizing smokers in the organization by getting them to work extra if they're taking smoking breaks or whatever that they were going, Teoh allow nonce makers to take additional days holiday Now, very interesting. It's open. We could have quite a debate about whether It's a good idea or bad idea. But why I tell you about this is that I have a student contact me and say, Isn't that discrimination? And I said, No, let's have a look at our list of protected characteristics. Is smoking on that? No. If the argument is going to be well, smoking is an addiction on addiction is a disability. Well, that's a knows. Well, because when we look at the definition of disability, we'll see that addictions are specifically excluded. So no treating potentially is treating smokers less favorably. Nobody could make a discrimination claim. And in the same way, another interesting question, I often get asked is, Well, if I'm treated less favourably because I support particular football team, can I make a claim of discrimination? In some areas? It can be quite contentious. In Manchester. You are the support Manchester United or Manchester City, it seems, and on if you're working with a group of city supporters in your united supporter, you might find that you get left out of things or or you get harassed or whatever. Let's hope it doesn't happen, but it's possible no football team support is not protected. Characteristic social status. Social class isn't I'm also are stick ation Libya. If somebody's treated less favourably because they're ugly, is that discrimination? Well, first of all, I would always be interested to know what open means. They do say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but no, it's not there. If somebody had a facial disfigurement, that could be a disability. But just because somebody doesn't like the look of someone no, that's not on the list now, Labour this point because it's really important with discrimination. There are situations where people jump up and say I'm being discriminated against, but legally they can't make that plane now just one other small point to make. What about trade union members, people working on part time contracts and fixed her contracts on the Ansari res that they are all protected under separate legislation? But it's no the range of discrimination we're going to talk about, so we're going to talk about seven different forms of discrimination, and in particular I'm going to explain the difference between direct and indirect discrimination that doesn't apply to trade union membership, part time workers or fixed time term workers. But those three groups cannot be treated less favourably because they are, well, they're not a trade union member because they're working part time because they're fixed term. But it is that little bit separate from what we're talking about today. So let's just look at these protected characteristics. And as I say, we could talk for hours about discrimination. I'm just going to make one or two points on some of them going to move through quite quickly because there's not a lot to say. So age. Just remember that this is not treating people less favorably because they're old or the young. It's not just protecting old people. It's also protecting. Yet now disability is a little bit more complicated because first of all, we have to look at the definition of disability, and it's a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial adverse effect on the and long term effect on the ability to carry out normal day to day activities. So long term means that it's lasted for 12 months. In medical opinion, it's going to last for 12 months or is terminal on. It could be a mental or a physical impairment, and if it's a mental impairment that focuses on the symptoms. It doesn't matter if there's not a label on what the the illness is if we just have a group of symptoms that could still be a disability. But he's got to be something that stops the individual. Doing normal day to day activities on that is defined quite broadly. So it's all those things that we do. We stand, walk, talk, hear, see, all of those things are normal day to day activities. It is also important to note that anybody who is diagnosed with cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV or AIDS it's then counted, defined as disabled from the date of diagnosis, even if the impact isn't particularly severe at first. So that's disability. Well, then have marital status and civil partnership. It's worth just noting that single people or people living together but no in a marriage or civil partnership are not protected is only a protection for those who are married or in a civil partnership maternity pregnancy. I think that's fairly straightforward. Race is defined as color, nationality and ethnic origin. Then we get to a slightly more complicated one again religion and belief. Religion, I think, is probably an area that we would probably agree on if I said that Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism or religions. I don't think we go and have an argument. A belief is more difficult to define is a philosophical belief that has an impact on the way that people live their life. It's cogen coherent, Andi. It worthy of respect in a democratic society, lots of words there. What does it mean? Well, veganism, for example, has recently been found to be a protected belief because a vegan, the pizza coherent belief on it does have an impact on the way that that somebody lives her life. Being vegan is quite restricted, restrictive on what individuals can e on what bill where vegetarianism, though, was not found to be a belief recently but a lifestyle choice no affecting the way people live their life in in the same way as veganism. The um, a belief in in the importance of sustainability has been found to be a belief, so his ethical journalism. So we really need to take each situation each belief on its own, go back to the definitions on, but have a think about whether it's actually sufficiently big, that is impacting the way somebody lives their life rather than, as they say, maybe a lifestyle choice. Sex is straightforward. We can't treat people less favorably because they remind or because that woman sexual orientation is defined as homosexuality, heterosexuality on bisexuality. No other sexual preferences are included. And we may say, Well, life has moved on a lot, and there's a much broader range of sexual preferences recognized nowadays. But we have to go with what's in the Equality Act, and then transgender status is is protecting somebody right from the very start the process on They don't have to be under medical supervision to be protected, So there are the nine protected characteristics. Now we've got the seven forms of discrimination on. I'm going to skip over the 1st 2 because I'm going to look at those in a little bit more detail in the movement because they're probably the most common and therefore it's useful. First, just Delvin a little bit more, so I'm going to look at 34567 So associate if discrimination. This is when somebody is treated less favourably because of the protected characteristic of someone they associate with. So, for example, this could be penalizing somebody because they take time off because they have a disabled partner who somebody therefore they associate with who they're having to care wait for is that that could be associative discrimination. Perceptive discrimination is treating somebody less favorably because it is perceived that they have a particular protected characteristic, even if they don't. So, for example, it could be that you receive on application form on. We look at the name of the individual on from that name. We presume that the person is a particular race or is a particular religion, and we reject the applicant because of that. Now that would be a perceptive discrimination, even if you were totally wrong. So I have a colleague who has a surname that is Russian Andi. If she was rejected because it was thought that she was Russian, that would be discrimination. Even though she's not, she actually married a Russian, so it doesn't matter whether they got the protected characteristic or no is if it is perceived that they have, and then they're treated less favourably as a result. Now, Harris Hman is a buck topic in itself. It's unwanted conduct, which has the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of an individual or creating a humiliating offensive etcetera environment. What's worth noting there is that it is the purpose or the effect. So it doesn't matter if the individual who is doing the Harris hman doesn't mean to cause any offense. Our focus is on what the effect is of the behavior, not the intention. Victimization is a particular form of discrimination, which is protecting the individual that's made a claim. If you could be treated less favourably once you've made it claim of discrimination, then you're going to be fairly motivated not to bring a claim on victimization address. Is that because it says you can't treat somebody less favorably because they have brought a claim of discrimination or they have supported somebody who has brought a claim? And finally, we have something specifically relating to the protected characteristic of disability, which is discrimination of rising from disability on. This is when somebody is treated less favourably because of something that occurs because of their disability. For example, if somebody was being performance managed because they made a lot of spelling the stakes on the reason they made a lot of spelling mistakes was because they were dyslexic on the dyslexia was bad enough to be counted as a disability. That could be discrimination arising from disability. So it's ever come back to the 1st 2 So let's look at direct. This is treating somebody less favorably because of a protected characteristic. So it's saying, I'm not going to promote you because you're a woman. I am not going to recruit you because you're disabled, that sort of situation and I put a case here because I think it's quite often useful. Teoh. Use a case toe. Understand discrimination in the Amnesty International versus Arm at 2009 case the the Woman. The claim in our med already worked for the organization, and she'd applied for a promotion to be a researcher. Now she was Sudanese. On do the research job required her to go to countries such as eastern Chad and north Sudan, where at the time, there were particular political tensions, which meant that as somebody who was Sudanese, she would be at risk, maybe even at risk of being killed. It was nothing about her. It was just the political tensions between the different countries. A Szot Amnesty International said, Well, you'd be great in the job, but we can't give it to you because you're Sudanese on because we have a responsibility to make sure that that you're safe. And she said, Well, that's direct race discrimination And she was successful in her claim. Now you may be saying, Well, what should the employer have done? But direct discrimination can never be justified. Apart from some limited situations relating toe Age Andi, these air situations such as if you recruit to somebody on there's a long training process. By the time they come to the end of the training process, they're going to be about ready to retire now, cause that's a difficult argument anyway, because we don't have a retirement age in the UK, so direct discrimination cannot be justified. And even though Amnesty International has some really good reasons for the decision they made, it cannot be justified. There are what we call occupational requirements, and these are situations where you can say I do need somebody with a particular protected characteristic because of the nature of the job. But they are limited list of situations, things like if you've got a female patient who needs a carer on is going to involve intimate care. You can say you want to a female to do that job or authenticity. If you wanted somebody to model lingerie for a long jury company, you could say you wanted a woman to do it rather than a big man. Well, yes, I think we'll see that. But that is logical. But they are a limited number of situations now. A little bit more complicated to understand is indirect. Discrimination on this is when a provision criterion or practice is applied to every well. It's more difficult for a group with a particular protected characteristic to comply. It's to the detriment of an individual. And it's not a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. Lots of words. So what does it mean? And again, I've picked out a case because it I do think it's worth working through a case here. T understand. I've picked as me versus Kirk, please. Metropolitan Council 2000 and seven, as Me is a Muslim lady on. She turned up for an interview for a teaching assistant in a school for Children who have behavioral and communication difficulties. When she turned up the interview. She was wearing the he job, which is the veil that just covers the hair. She got the job. She turned up on her first day at work wearing a burka, which is a full veil that covers the face as well. And the school said no. These are Children who have behavior on communication difficulties, and actually, when we communicate, we use the face as well as words. We frown. We smile, we do all sorts of things with our face on. And it's one way that when we communicated to someone, we sort of understand what they're saying. And these Children that struggling anyway on Do you want to take away this cute isn't this information. And she said, Well, if you won't let me wear a burger I can't do the job on that would be in direct religious discrimination. So let's have a look. Is there a provision criterion or practice being applied? Yes, you've got to have your face visible, and that's being applied to everyone. Is it more difficult for a group with a particular protected characteristic to comply? Yes, it's more difficult for Muslim ladies because they are the one religious group that does wear this veil that covers the face. Is it to the detriment of an individual? Yeah, asthma is being told you can't have the job if she doesn't comply. Is it a proportionate means of achieving a literate My aim? Can it be justified on what the council was successful in showing is actually yes, it could be justified that it is more difficult for anyone, not just Children, to understand if if the face is is not visible on. Therefore, this was not indirect discrimination because they could show that it was actually justified. Requirement. I think it's often useful to think of jumping over four hurdles. Here's the four hurdles there, Andi. As soon as you've crashed into one and said, Well, actually, no. So if you said well, it's not actually more difficult for a group with a particular protected characteristic to comply, then you know it. It's no indirect discrimination, so you've got to be able to jump before hurdles to get to the conclusion that is in direct discrimination. So I hope you found that useful. A bit of an insight into discrimination. Thank you for listening