Restricting applications to make things balance

As my DD2 left University there was a rush of newly created posts in the field she wanted to work in across various national art galleries and museums. Only open to applicants of specific ethnic minority backgrounds. I don't know if that would be legal now. As her great-grandad was a foundling, origins unknown, I tried to persuade her to apply anyway, but she wouldn't.

Any job, post, position should go the person thought to be the best applicant. It should not matter what colour, creed, ethnicity or sex they are.
Surely anything else would be prejudice towards certain groups of people.

I suppose that maybe places like galleries have been awarded funding based on offering employment to targeted populations?

What if say, a criminal with a violent history was allowed to work in a school?

I thought it was illegal - unlawful discrimination on the grounds of race and sex:

Here is a case from 2006 where Gloucestershire Police were found to have rejected applications from white male job applicants:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/5369876.stm

I've seen that too but not recently because I haven't been looking for a job. I think it was pretty standard for public organisations but agree it is wrong. DH and I had this conversation yesterday when there was a discussion on the radio about under representation of ethnic minorities in the police and we agreed it would be unfair to positively discriminate.

I don't follow your reasoning, soon?

A criminal with a violent history would not be allowed to work in a school soon because they would have to have a DBS check which they would not pass.

I think the OP was about positive discrimination enabling more women and ethnic minorities joining the firm in question.

Of course, if a firm advertised that they wanted to recruit white males and that applications from women or ethnic minorities would probably not be considered they would be in court pdq.

Positive discrimination isn't it?

I'm not sure how they get away with it, but it isn't unusual.

I know it should really be the best person chosen, but.... Sometimes a bit of positive discrimination is needed in order to get say, black or ethnic people into organisations, it kind of paves the way for companies to get used to more diverse employees, also women!

My understanding is that the furthest an employer can go is say in the advert that applications are welcomed from women /older people/specific ethnic origin. Applications must then be considered on their merit.

Last week police forces were criticised by Theresa May for not having enough ethnic minority police officers. So what should they do?

Our LEA (as was) had an application form with a removable front page where all the personal data regarding sex, ethnicity, name, etc was written.

Each application was allotted a number and this was written in the front page, by administration, and a corresponding number written on the remaining pages of the application form.

Only them was it sent to the appropriate department for shortlisting. So unless you chose to declare something personal about yourself in the body of the application you were effectively anonymous.

I am not in favour of positive discrimination. You just need the right person for the job - that is true equality.

I am reminded of the 11+ and how there was a positive discrimination in favour of boys, as so many more girls passed than boys. The pass mark was upped for girls, depriving many academic girls of the chance of an academic education. The whole concept of grammar schools may in itself no longer be approved of, but the discrimination in this policy was iniquitous.

Every time we were reorganised in the NHS which was about every 18 months senior posts were only open to those already in senior posts despite the fact that they had already screwed things up so much that we had to have a reorganisation so therefore promotion prospects were zero.