Race discrimination: Discriminatory instruction was less favourable treatment

In Weathersfield Ltd t/a Van & Truck Rentals v Sargent [1998] IRLR 14, the EAT upholds an industrial tribunal's finding that a white employee suffered unlawful race discrimination when she was instructed by her employer to discriminate on racial grounds against black and Asian people, and consequently resigned because she was put in an intolerable position. According to the EAT, the applicant was unfavourably treated by comparison with a person who would have been prepared to carry out the employer's discriminatory policy, and this was sufficient to amount to a contravention of the Race Relations Act.