Has EDI revived Institutional Racism?

Thames Valley Police lost an Employment Tribunal this week, despite the force's efforts to combat racism and a zero tolerance approach they racially discriminated against three officers. How?

Over the last week we have seen two new examples of major institutions and employers in the UK losing cases of discrimination. Yet, we are told by the institutions that they have a zero tolerance approach to any discrimination and anyone who discriminates will feel the full force of the organisation’s disciplinary process. So why does this keep happening? Let’s look at the case of the Thames Valley Police who were, this week, found to have directly racially discriminated against three white officers. How could a modern employer, with a zero tolerance approach to racism, end up with this ruling.

Before I continue a disclaimer:

I am writing this article as an HR Professional in genuine concern about the continued unlawful conduct of employers across the United Kingdom. This article is not intended to whip up outrage or incite anyone to violence. It is not intended to offend anyone. 

An Employment Tribunal has ruled that TVP racially discriminated against three white police officers. All three had long service at Inspector rank. There was a vacancy for a Chief Inspector. Rather than advertise the job internally, the Superintendent responsible and the Chief Constable decided to promote a Sergeant Sidhu into the vacancy, leapfrogging the three Inspectors. Now I am sure that the now Chief Inspector Sidhu is an extremely competent officer, however it is best practice to always advertise internally and to mention that there is a vacancy to employees who would most likely be candidates and then to give all candidates a far crack of the whip. This didn’t happen. At the Tribunal it was revealed that the Superintendent decided to strong arm through the promotion to improve BAME representation at senior leadership levels. The Chief Constable approved this decision. It appears that both were warned that this could result in discrimination but they ignored this, focused entirely on their mission to deliver what they see as a diverse leadership team. To add insult to injury, when challenged after the effect, senior leadership claimed that this promotion was part of an EDI programme to improve diversity. Under cross examination, it was revealed that no such programme existed. They had made it up to justify their actions and to shut down any challenges.

The force was found to have racially directly discriminated against the claimants by fact that they did not possess the protected characteristic of Sgt. Sidhu. 

Now there is rather a lot to unpack here so let’s break it down.

 Following the horrific murder of Stephen Lawrence and the subsequent report by the late Sir William Macpherson of Cluny, the Metropolitan Police was found to be ‘institutionally racist’. 

So, what is ‘Institutional Racism’?

Checking multiple definitions from multiple sources brings up the same or very similar results - unusually, it appears to be something we all agree on:

Wikipedia:

Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is defined as policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race or ethnic group.

Following the Macpherson report, Police forces and institutions across the United Kingdom introduced policies to ensure they were not institutionally racist. Indeed, Thames Valley Police currently has a Race Action Plan for 2023-2026 which is a comprehensive and highly detailed approach to combatting institutional racism. In the plan it specifically identifies the issue of Positive Discrimination and in the glossary at the end highlights the risks of breaking the law here. So why, despite this comprehensive plan, did the Police Force do precisely that? Breach the Equality Act 2010? Why did it racially discriminate against employees despite having a Zero Tolerance approach and why, when it was quite obvious that their actions would be ruled as racist, did they continue to fight the Employment Tribunal, a decision that has to be sanctioned at the highest level in any organisation due to the consequences of losing, both fiscally but also on the reputation of the employer? 

Well, we have seen the Force’s Diversity and Inclusion training course, I’m not going to share it here as it is a copyrighted document and to my knowledge is not in the public domain. However, the contents of this course go a long way to explain how this happened.

Firstly, some definitions.

In 2010 the Equality Act defined race in law as:

“In the Equality Act, race can mean your colour, or your nationality (including your citizenship). It can also mean your ethnic or national origins, which may not be the same as your current nationality. For example, you may have Chinese national origins and be living in Britain with a British passport.”

And Racial discrimination as:

“The Equality Act 2010 says you must not be discriminated against because of your race.”

On Slide 14 of the TVP Training we have their definition of ‘Inclusion;:

“The degree to which an employee perceives that he or she is an esteemed member of the work group through experiencing treatment that satisfies his or her needs for belongingness and uniqueness.”

Interestingly enough the dictionary definition of ‘Inclusion’ is: “ the act of including someone or something as part of a group, list, etc., or a person or thing that is included”.

The difference is subtle but important as it’s a good indicator of the approach the Force has decided to take and, sure enough, on page 22, we find this picture:

Furthermore, on page 23 there is a high profile quote and a photograph of the DEI Activist Verna Myres:

““Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance,” Verna Myers”

Verna Myres is an American attorney and DEI specialist, until 2023 she ran DEI at Netflix and was instrumental in deploying DEI into the creative process:

““Who’s represented, who’s not represented in our content?” she said. “Who’s directing? Who’s writing? Who’s acting? How authentic is the story we’re telling? “ Verna Myres - interview in AFRO.

As an attorney Verna was instrumental in shifting the legal establishment in Boston to a culture of constant inclusivity.

A cursory search of the internet links Verna with a number of high profile DEI advocates in the USA, including Robyn DiAngelo, author of White Fragility and an advocate for Critical Race Theory. Although, to her credit, Verna criticises the accusatory language used by DeAngelo and others and is an advocate of the idea that you can’t blame people if they aren’t consciously aware of their biases.

I am not going to get into the debate around Critical Race Theory here. The main question is: why is a British Police Force deploying American Diversity Equity and Inclusion models? 

The problem is that, as the Employment Tribunal decision proved, there are significant tensions between the American DEI model and British Equality laws. In May this year, I had a meeting with a group of American DEI consultants. They were keen to stress to me that British HR people are in ‘error’ because they continue to use the ‘now debunked’ idea of ‘Equality’ where in order to address social injustice ‘Equity’ is required. What’s the difference? Well, the image above is as good a way of explaining it as any. I told the Americans that there was a problem with their approach in the context of the United Kingdom: that ‘equity’ policies like ‘positive discrimination’ and ‘affirmative action’ can result in an employer running foul of the Equality Act 2010. The American’s were surprised to hear this and their response was a resigned despair at our national backwardness.

Fast forward to last month where the SHRM, the largest Human Resources Professional Body in the world changed it’s position on Diversity Equity and Inclusion to Diversity and Inclusion. The rage and fury of American based DEI Consultants was extraordinary and the SHRM was accused of everything from being ‘White Supremacist’ to ‘harming marginalised groups’. What they missed or neglected to understand, is that the SHRM, although has its roots in the USA and still counts Americans as it’s main membership, is now an international organisation. Thus it serves a large church of different legislations and cultures and anything it does needs to take into account of global nuances. I jumped onto this febrile discussion on LinkedIn and pointed out that the response was just a ‘tiny bit American chauvinist’ as in other parts of the world, like the UK for example, ‘equity’ was likely to get an employer into trouble.

And here we have the source of the rub - the explanation as to WHY Thames Valley Police has essentially become institutionally racist. Why it is racially discriminating against its own employees. It appears to have adopted an American Diversity Equity and Inclusion model in it’s training of officers and staff rather than a British Equality Diversity and Inclusion Model. This is despite its own conscious caveat about the risks of acting unlawfully in the document quoted above.  It appears that they are training American Critical Race Theory, or at least a slightly watered down version, which specifically links racism with power - the power being the majority ethnicity and because racism means power and racial discrimination, you cannot be racist to the majority ethnicity, furthermore, any pushback is dismissed as ‘white fragility’. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not accusing Thames Valley Police of setting out to revive the horrors of institutional racism. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and what we are seeing here is an organisation that was trying to do the right thing, and went down a rabbit hole which resulted in doing precisely what it was trying to avoid. How did this happen? Well you can read my article on this here. Now, I know, through discussions in ‘the trade’ how TVP approached developing their Diversity and Inclusion training and it appears that very little thought was applied - specifically a failure in governance to check if the training might cross the line with the Equality Act 2010. This happens when organisations are so focused on the goal - in this case fast tracking an inclusive culture, that they fail to appropriately consider the consequences of their actions. I know that there were parts of the course that were frankly, openly racist against white people which were dropped before publication. The whole approach appears to have been incredibly slapdash. 

Yet the consequences are appalling. They are appalling because this training has now created a culture where the most senior leadership in the Force are so convinced that their inclusivity policy is the correct thing to do that they not only racially discriminated against their own employees but they then went on to fight a Tribunal that they had little or no chance of winning. That senior management team has been trained in a theory that essentially blinds them to racism against white people, it has become their ‘unconscious bias’ and they followed that, utterly convinced of their own position, right up to the judgement of the Tribunal. 

The most disconcerting thing about this entire fiasco is that that the senior leadership team in a Police Force of all places is in a lockstep of groupthink so universal that at no point did they realise that the Emperor had no clothes on. If you want to understand how Groupthink manifests in leadership teams in the modern workplace, I cover it in this article here which also has links to others with tips to avoiding Groupthink. 

Now to date no one at in the senior management team at the Force appears to have been disciplined for racial discrimination, which is gross misconduct in most employers, and I wouldn’t hold your breath here that they ever will. However, at some point in the not too distant future, executives who behave in this way will start to suffer the personal consequences of breaking the law and breaking their own employment contracts. It’s probably a good idea to check your organisation is complying with UK laws. One hopes that this case will be a wake up call for both Thames Valley Police and every other employer in the UK and that those employers examine their Equality Diversity and Inclusion policies and training very carefully, especially if they have implemented American style DEI. Ideally get someone external to audit your policy, you can contact me here.