Equality, diversity and human rights >
Direct discrimination
A care worker has won her claims for direct race discrimination and harassment after colleagues excluded her by speaking a foreign language during a meeting.
Updated to include a reference to the protection from harassment measures in the Employment Rights Bill, published on 10 October 2024.
Updated to include a reference to Leicester City Council v Parmar, in which the EAT upheld the tribunal's finding of direct race discrimination.
Age discrimination can be a tricky area for employers. In this edition of the podcast, Susie Munro, Senior Legal Editor at XpertHR, leads us on a tour of recent cases that offer examples of how things can go wrong if they are mishandled and provides some tips on avoiding typical age-related traps.
In Forstater v CGD Europe and others, an employment tribunal held that a consultant researcher was discriminated against when a think tank ended its relationship with her because of her gender-critical belief, which she had expressed on Twitter.
In Forstater v CGD Europe and others, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the consultant's belief that sex is biologically immutable amounts to a philosophical belief within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010.
In Crompton v Eden Private Staff Ltd, an employment tribunal found that jibes made by employees to a 57-year-old colleague about Alzheimer's and "senior moments" constituted harassment under the Equality Act 2010.
In Commissioner of the City of London Police v Geldart, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that a failure to pay a London allowance to a police officer on maternity leave constituted direct sex discrimination and no comparator was required.
In Badara v Pulse Healthcare Ltd, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the employer should not have relied solely on negative Home Office checks when it dismissed the employee for failing to provide right to work documentation.
In Owen v Amec Foster Wheeler Energy Ltd and another, the Court of Appeal held that refusing to allow a disabled employee to undertake an overseas posting due to medical concerns did not amount to direct disability discrimination.
HR and legal information and guidance relating to direct discrimination.