Positive Discrimination and UK Law

Positive discrimination

Positive discrimination could be considered to be lawful under the legal stipulations of the Equality Act 2010 under limited circumstances. The underlying causality could be better defined as the establishment of proportionate means of achievement of any legitimate and necessary objective. Such limited circumstances could be associated with the lawfulness of fulfilment of the requirements of a job applicant or worker whose lineage could be associated with any particular protected characteristic. This could be better explained in terms of occupational requirement fulfilment. One particular instance could be highlighted as the promulgations of Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance pertaining to the obligation of employment of only women as staff members at every refuge centres for women. Such arguments could be contextualised in the perceptions of the General Dental Council of UK regarding the necessity to implement a holistic inclusive strategy with the particular objective of equality and diversity management within the UK dental medical industry. The perspectives which underline such argumentative positions are associated with the objective to ensure the fulfilment of necessities of professional progression and expansion of representation of such protective characteristic groups, reckoning the intricacies and necessities as well as the expectations of diversified groups of dental patients, including from the BAME communities and the formulation of a culturally proximate and sensitized workforce to properly address the necessities of such an increasingly diversified patient populace. This workforce is necessary in terms of reflecting the diversity which has become the most prominent ethno-cultural hallmarks of the UK populace.

Positive action

The legal validity of positive action, in favour of formulation of the quota systems in favour of greater inclusivity and opportunity provisioning to the applicants from the protected characteristics groups, is enshrined in the Section 158 and Section 159 of the Equality Act (2010) and such validity is compliant to the fulfilment of the relevant conditions on the basis of which the positive actions could be taken to foster greater opportunity of inclusion of applicants of such protected characteristics based groups. The underlying legal endorsement of positive actions for the dental school authorities could be identified as the taking of action by the school authorities to properly compensate for the disadvantages which, the authorities could reasonably acknowledge to have been afflicting the personnel who could be in possession of particular characteristics which are legally enunciated to be inclusive to the protected categories of characteristics.

The effects related to Section 158, Equality Act (2010) could be further highlighted to explain the requirement of positive action in favour of the instituting the quota based admission systems at the dental schools in the form of permitting any general exception to the instituted conditions of admission based on the conventional admittance practices. The objective would be to permit the positive action, through proportionate means, to enable and encourage persons with shared protected characteristics, to either overcome or to minimise the disadvantages which could be afflicting them in their professional engagement with particular occupational disciplines such as accessing admission into the dental schools. This could be alternatively acknowledged to be the addressing of the problem of disproportionate representation of personnel from the various protected characteristic groups (based on factors such as age, gender, race, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, gender reassignment, religious beliefs and disability). This is representative of redressing the employment opportunities of members of such protected characteristics groups in terms of traditional (dentistry) and non-traditional professions and training perspectives.

Points opposing the Against arguments

The arguments pertaining to the issue of preservation of inadvertent bias through quota systems effectuation in the dental schools of UK require appraisal through the predominant issue of dearth of proper expansion of participation regarding the ensuring of propriety in the future of dentistry within the UK. In this context, the particular metaphor of the Pipeline of supply of candidates in this medical occupational field could be put into effective utilisation to demonstrate the imbalance in representation of various groups with protected characteristics such as BAME women, LGBTQ, ethnic minority groups and others. The experience of under representation by the members of such groups while having to access admittance opportunities within the profession/discipline of Dentistry could be further evaluated through the perspectives of the traditional professions which had been so far considered to be off-limits to such groups. There are three particular phases which could be considered to be modified through administration of quota based inclusion of candidates of protected characteristics groups within the dental services training institution. The first would be the gaining of access phase into the educational institutions. The second would be the contribution of the quota based admittance systems in the successful participation and completion of such training courses within the dental schools by such personnel. The final would be the measure to which such professionals could develop their career within the UK dental industry.

In this context, it is my conviction that greater expansion of the representative cohorts of dental students who could be admitted on the basis of such quota institution could further the objectives of providing future dental professionals with an extensive ethno-cultural-linguistic and gender based diversity. The factor of proportionate representation of all the variations of the UK populace, inclusive of the protected characteristics, is fundamental to this argument since this pertains to the addressing of inequalities. As has been previously insinuated concerning the statements affirmed by NHS (4), it is not a guarantee of ensuring egalitarianism and equality of the outcomes to treat everyone in the similar manner. This statement is significant concerning combating the dearth of diversity in the dental professions. This has been also the context which has been utilised by the Equality Office of the government to outline the efficacy of positive action implementation in the recruitment of candidates of protected characteristics groups who could be reasonable evaluated to be comparable in merit to candidates who are excluded from such protected characteristics groups. However, the element of proportionality of addressing inequality would have to be factored in while administering of the quota based student enrolment systems in dental schools. This could be juxtaposed with the policy of UCAS regarding inapplicability of positive action in the recruitment procedures through the context of admittance in the dental schools being the singular methods through which an aspiring dentist could receive institutionalised training and, thus, the provisions of positive actions in favour of the quota implementation could be applied in this context.