Positive Discrimination, Is It Really Acceptable?

[youngmafbog]

Why should you be put to the bottom of the pile jut because of an accident of birth?

Is positive discrimination any better, or any worse, than negative discrimination?

Personally I think it is very wrong. Right person for the job no matter what gender, race or class or any other 'bucket' for that matter.

Non of this helps if the right-on liberal ideal is for us to be all equal surely it breeds more resentment?

[vetuste_ennemi]

//public services body is located in an area of the country with a certain mix of people from different economic backgrounds, and the survey finds that everyone working for that department are Oxbridge graduates, it may highlight an otherwise undetected issue with the recruitment process.//

It may do, and it may not, SP. In your extreme case (100% Oxbridge) I might find myself curious. But what if it were 20% Oxbridge? Or 75% female? Why would either of those necessarily matter? I do not agonise how poorly represented white athletes are in the GB track and field events. Why should I unless there were some prior indication that white athletes are being discriminated against? And before I set out on a witch-hunt to root out and persecute the discriminators and establish "balance" I would need better indications of bias than the complaints of a few white sprinters who didn't make the team. I don't think you would disagree with me in THIS case, would you?

[sp1814]

v_e

The point about gathering data is to be in a position to analyse it.

This exercise is a data collation process.

What's the problem with that?

Should public sector bodies be happy to be completely ignorant of the staff they employ?

What's the problem with increasing knowledge about employees?

You're last paragraph is nonsensical.

You wrote:

It may do, and it may not, SP. In your extreme case (100% Oxbridge) I might find myself curious. But what if it were 20% Oxbridge? Or 75% female?

How would you know without gathering information beforehand?

If as a result of this data analysis it's reveals that you have an imbalance of staff, you can then assess whether it's an issue or not. It may transpire that your advertising strategy is wrong. Perhaps you are posting adverts in the Guardian, whereas you should be spreading your budget to include other publications.

Perhaps you have recruiters who have a natural bias in favour of graduate applicants where jobs on offer don't need that educational attainment.

But you can't assess this without first finding out a little more about the people you have already hired.

Ignorance is not, and has never been...bliss.