The Race Legal Support Fund was launched by the Employment and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in November 2021 to tackle race discrimination, harassment and victimisation, not just in the workplace but in other settings, for example sports clubs and entertainment venues. The Fund was allocated £250,000 in its first year and had additional funding for a further year, to support cases of race discrimination.
Just three years later, the Race Legal Support Fund is now closed to new applications. As of May 2024, the EHRC had supported 45 cases ranging from claims against the Ministry of Defence, the Probation Service to a claim by an Irish Traveller family prevented from booking a venue for a christening.
Personally, I am disappointed the Fund is now closed. Firstly, it was not widely known, even in the employment law community, that this Fund could support litigants who otherwise could not afford legal advice and representation. It takes time for information relating to funding to disseminate so that it can then be accessed. Secondly, and more importantly for me, the sad reality is that racism still exists and there is a huge amount of work still to be done to eradicate it.
It was an underlying cause of the riots we saw in the summer; the fear of immigration and racism being intrinsically linked, causing tension to manifest in violence, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the race riots in the eighties. The Fund went some way at least to achieving this important goal and eliminating racism.
Sometimes in the workplace, racism is overt – when someone is called the n or p word, monkey noises are made to harass a black worker or it is assumed that if you are Muslim, you must be a terrorist. But most of the time it is not overt. I represent lots of people of colour, especially female BAME senior executives, who know that even though there may not be name calling or obvious slurs made to them, that they are being treated differently because of their race, origin or colour of their skin.
Being a British woman of Indian heritage, I can empathise because, simply put, your gut knows that this is the reason. Some of my black female clients are criticised for being aggressive or angry which aligns with perceived stereotypes that black females are belligerent, difficult or contentious. Other clients have had allegedly innocuous remarks made to them that would never be said to a white colleague, such as ‘you are not in a minority’ or ‘do you need to ask your husband?’ Some clients are ostracised or micro-managed and over scrutinised, which they know is because of their race as their white peers are not being treated the same way.
If a worker brings a claim for race discrimination and in the absence of any direct evidence, they have to persuade a tribunal to draw adverse inferences that the alleged discrimination or harassing conduct is predicated on race. For this reason, many race claims do not succeed because a tribunal will not join the dots and make findings of race discrimination or harassment, giving the Respondents the benefit of the doubt that the reason for the treatment is not motivated by race.
I do not have all the answers, but clearly more needs to be done to educate people and change mindsets so that we can celebrate our differences and treat people equally irrespective of their background/race/skin colour.
Overall, there needs to be more accountability for perpetrators, and the Fund was one way of achieving that – allowing victims to have access to proper legal support, people who can effectively advocate for them. With a change in Government, it will be interesting to see how they intend to tackle this issue and what steps will be taken to win the fight against racism.
This blog was written by Anita Vadgama, Partner at didlaw.
