Discrimination Against White Men

Force admits rejecting white men

Gloucestershire police force has admitted illegally rejecting 108 job applicants because they were white men.

The Police Federation said the force has been trying to recruit more female officers and more people from ethnic minorities to meet a government target.

What amazes me is they actually admitted discriminating against white men. There are people out there who say such discrimination cannot possibly happen because "white men have it all." Reality checks like this are, of course, wasted on such people.

But one of the unsuccessful applicants, Matt Powell took legal action and has been awarded £2,500 by a tribunal.

Mr Powell, 30, said he became suspicious when he was told he had been "randomly deselected".

A tribunal actually awarded money to a white man alleging discrimination. With as politically correct as this world is becoming, this blows me away. Cases like this do not fit the accepted "wisdom" that "white men are evil oppressors with the world at their feet" and "everyone else is a sweet, innocent victim of white male oppression." Newsflash: white men can be wronged too.

By the way, has anyone ever heard of "random deselection" before? I would think if a police force was looking for the most qualified applicants, they would not choose to randomly disregard applications. Of course, we know the deselection in this case was hardly random.

The case comes six months after Avon and Somerset Police admitted it had illegally rejected almost 200 applications from white men for the same reason.

Apparently, such discrimination has happened elsewhere.

Police are under pressure to meet the government target, set in 1999, that by 2009, 7% of police officers in England and Wales should be from ethnic minority groups.

In September 2005, only 1.6% of Gloucestershire Police officers were black or Asian.

...

Earlier this year, Gloucestershire's Assistant Chief Constable Michael Matthews admitted 'positive action' had been taken to recruit more women and from ethnic minorities.

"It is essential in a democratic policing environment to ensure that under-represented groups are prioritised in our recruitment drives," he said.

I have never heard a compelling reason for why the presence of minorities is so important there ought to be goals (read: quotas) for their recruitment. Just because some Assistant Chief Constable says it is does not mean I believe it. I do not see so-called underrepresentation as a "problem," but then again, I think outside of the politically correct prison so many others have incarcerated themselves in.

Mr Powell's solicitor, Nigel Tillott, said: "The impact of this is that it is now clear how far public authorities can go in positive action.

"What they cannot do is discriminate against white males when it comes to job applications."

What makes preferring minorities in recruitment inherently positive? Oops! I have forgotten I am to accept this without question. The politically correct gods have spoken.