More Mandatory Inequality
December 3, 2010
BRITAIN’S Equality Act of 2010 encourages companies to choose women and racial minorities over equally qualified white male job candidates. As reported in The Daily Mail, Labour ministers announced yesterday that the new law would “apply voluntary positive action in recruitment and promotion processes when faced with candidates of equal merit, to address under-representation in the workforce.’ This goes a step further than most anti-discrimination laws, at least the stated intention of most anti-discrimination laws, which is to remove any supposed bias against women. The Equality Act sets a new standard of active discrimination in favor of women.
The British government is also considering the draconian possibility of requiring the most powerful corporations to ensure that their boards are at least 40 percent female. Currently, about 12 percent of board directors are women.