Multiple Discrimination
The Problem of People Suffering Discrimination on Several Grounds
UK law does not yet adequately recognise the plight of those who suffer disadvantage due to discrimination against more than one protected characteristic.
Simply put, a claim of multiple discrimination arises where a claimant feels they have been discriminated against due to more than one protected social characteristic. Unfortunately, the law in the United Kingdom as it currently stands is unable to recognise claims of multiple discrimination and so it seems that the more a person differs from the norm, the more likely they are to experience multiple discrimination, the less likely they are to gain protection.
Multiple Discrimination in Practice
So, for example, a claimant may feel that they lost out on a promotion due to both sex and race discrimination. Despite the fact that the increased number of recognised grounds of discrimination means that there is an increased number of people who feel they have been discriminated against due to multiple grounds, the United Kingdom anti-discrimination legislation is still designed around a single ground model.
The Failures of the Current System
Although considering the situation exclusively in relation to African American women, Professor Kimberley Crenshaw has provided a good summary of the inadequacy of a single ground approach to discrimination:
“… in race discrimination cases, discrimination tends to be viewed in terms of sex- or class-privileged Blacks; in sex discrimination cases, the focus is on race- or class-privileged women.
This focus on the most privileged group members marginalises those who are multiply burdened and obscures claims that cannot be understood as resulting from discrete sources of discrimination. I suggest further that this focus on otherwise-privileged group members creates a distorted analysis of racism and sexism because the operative conceptions of race and sex become grounded in experiences that actually only represent a subset of a more complex phenomenon. … Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated”.
It can be seen that the insistence upon a single ground view of discrimination means that a true picture of discrimination in the UK cannot be seen. Those claims which do not fit within the current legislative model but which do undoubtedly show that [multiple] discrimination has occurred end up having necessary facts ignored so that they might successfully be brought before the Courts. Further, as long as problems stemming from discrimination are seen as singular issues, remedies will remain out of reach for those who suffer multiple grounds.
References:
Fredman, S. "Double Trouble: Multiple Discrimination and EU Law" in European Anti-Discrimination Law Review (2005)Issue 2
Crenshaw, K. "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Anti-Discrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Anti-Racist Politics" in Weisberg, D.K. (ed.) Feminist Legal Theory: Foundations (1993) (Philadelphia: Temple)
