@Dilworth: So firstly I can say, as the person responsible for race and ethnicity equality in my school, which is the largest work area (department/schooo/insitute/centre etc) in the university that we have no quantitative "diversity targets". The closest thing we have is a vaguely worded "desire" for our workforce to be more representative of the local/national and international communities it serves.

Secondly, while the university does record diversity information on candidates, this information is not provided to the recruitment panel. An exception to this is diability, where candidates selected for interview might need reasonable adjustments to be able to attend.

The Equalities Act 2010, Section 159, paragraph 4b makes it illegal for an employer to "have a policy of treating persons who share the protected characteristic more favourably in connection with recruitment or promotion than persons who do not share it" (legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/159)

We are allowed, under section 158, to target adverts and encourage applications from individuals with protected characteristics. We do have a policy of encouraging applications for externally funded fellowships from women (but in that situation we wouldn't be making the decision on funding/not-funding/hiring/not-hiring - the external body, generally a government or charity funding council would).

We have no such equivalent policy for regards to race, ethnicity or religion (although I think we probably should have).

Generally, there are limited instances where one may appoint someone based on a protected characteristic, more or less always when choosing between candidates of equal merit. This government document gives plenty of examples: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/…

Its worth noting that that leaflet is from 2011, but in Furlong v Chief Constable for Cheshire Police [2019] ET 2405577/18 a judge found that a white hetrosexual man without a disability had been unfairly discriminated against because Cheshire Constabulary had applied an artificially low threshold for what counts as "equal merit".

The same judgement also ruled that even if if equal merit had been sufficiently demonstrated, the use of protected charatoristics as a "tie-breaker" would have been disproportionate because there was evidence that other measure employed by CC to remedy the lack of diversity in their worksforce had been showing signs of improving things.

However, the main point, is that even when you can show in an individual case that what happened wasn't discrimination, the employer cannot have a policy of favoring individuals with protected characteristics.

@IanSudbery Hello. There are cases where race/gender is included in the list to all members of recruitment team and beyond. You case is thus no necessarily universal.

Second, the case from 2019 you mentioned shows that there are cases where hires/interviews are done based on diversity-points.

Third, it is not unreasonable to assume that there will be (conscious or unconscious) bias toward favourably recruiting more diverse candidates, as I've explained in my answer, since these things are then audited and checked and encouraged.

To sum it up, although some legal measures are put to assure that appointments are "based on merit alone", just as bias cropped regularly in recruitment before DEI ethos became important, it is now reasonable to assume that it is cropping in only in the opposite direction, based on explicit targets or "desires".

To clarify my point: there are regulatory requirements to promote diversity hires. Only that there are also (practically, if not formally) contradicting legal dictates to maintain merit-based hiring. In practice, as shown in the case from 2019 you've mentioned, and beyond, it is hard not to assume that diversity-points do make a difference in hiring decisions.

@dilworth. I'm not sure I've see any regulatory requirements to promote "diversity-hires" (in universities). There are requirements to promote diversity in hiring (which is different from diversity hires) in the public sector (which universities are not part of).

Every academic employer in the UK i've knowledge of documents hires in the same way: a sheet that lists the essential and desirable person specification points and a space to say if and how the candidate meets them. Person specs are generally public, and I've never seen a person spec that lists diversity as a required or desired characteristic, and I refuse to blieve they exist until someone shows me one.

I would never claim an individual has never discriminated in favour of someone with a protected characteristic (either consciously or unconsciously). But the term "diversity points" or "diversity hire" suggests either an official policy, or a concerted (but unofficial) effort by a committee.

While evidence of unofficial bias is hard to collect (as discussed in other posts), it trends towards suggesting that where bias exists, it is more common for it to be against such people, not in favour (although this is strongest for sex and black people, as opposed to middle eastern people).

While there may be the occasional rule breakers, until someone demonstrates otherwise, with evidence, I refuse to believe that that such things are common official policies at a large number of institutions.

As for audits etc, as the person responsible for trying to improve race equality and diversity in my school, no one has ever come to me and said "only 20% of your interviewees are diverse, and only 5% of hires. Do better".

@IanSudbery, (1) the desire to make hiring diverse (ethnically, and gender-wise) is quite explicit in the university sector. (2) DEI efforts are definitely correlated with an attempt to favourably look at "diversity-points" of candidates. (3) Indeed, the ethnicity and gender of candidates is explicitly provided to recruitment committees (at some schools; not yours apparently).

(4) This, together with EDI message and intent, is very reasonably correlated with some (conscious or unconscious) bias in favour of "diversity candidates".

If that were the case, you'd be seeing an increase in the levels of diversity in hires. Which we are not seeing.

(5) Thus, there is a mix, as I've explained above, between implictly opposing messages: diversity hires, and merit-based hires.

"the desire to make hiring diverse (ethnically, and gender-wise) is quite explicit in the university sector." This is different to a "regulatory requirement".

These are not rigid regulatory requirements with numbers always, but my understanding is that there are some regulations: e.g. audits for "diversity". that's' why BAME candidates are tagged.

Also, in workshops and conferences currently you do get explicit minimal numbers of diversity participants. Hence, it is reasonable to assume that in some places you get those also in hirings.

"> If that were the case, you'd be seeing an increase in the levels of diversity in hires. Which we are not seeing." --- actually, I do see it quite often.

Look at many STEM departments across UK. Number of British is very low, for example. Number of BAME is quite high in my imperssion.

I see, that's interesting. In the US/Canada hiring can be made based on diversity points.

"Number of British are very low" - how can you tell that? Have you asked everyone if they are British?

You can easily look at their CV, or you actually can ask them indeed, or know them, etc. (Of course, them may have become a citizenship afterwards of course).

The statistics are that there are just 160 Black professors in the UK (vs 3.3% in the population) and 11% of professors were BAME vs 30% in the population.

You were talking about the increase in hirings, not the current percentage. Do you have those numbers?

"The statistics are that there are just 160 Black professors in the UK (vs 3.3% in the population) and 11% of professors were BAME vs 30% in the population." --- how can you tell that? Have you asked all black/BAME faculty? Note that some faculty members may refuse to identify ethnically, etc.

The data is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency. I suspect self-definition part of the data collection, and yes, this has issues.

Do you have STEM statistics? I can believe major English departments are non BAME

For your "non-british" the data is 17% of staff are from EU countries, and 14% from non-EU countries. Here data isn't via self ID, because univerisity will know this.

I don't have that breakdown, no. But with only 2,500 BAME professors (out of 21,000) in the country, I can't really it being common for a department to have majority BAME professors.

2500 BAME professors seems like an under-estimate. Are you claiming that ethinically-Asian professors in the whole UK is less than ~2000??

1,495

You are talking strict professors, not L/SL/R?

Yes. I don't have L/SL/R numbers, only "staff overall" and "Professors"

Yes, so what is the Asians % of staff overall?

9%

PS. Are we including in "Asians" group (South Asia, and East Asia)? For staff overall, I meant academic staff overall

The choices for ethicity are White, Asian, Black, Mixed and other. So Asian would include both East and South Asians. And yes, this is academic staff.

Of course, these are very interesting figures and data. But it does not refute/relate directly to my claims: percentage numbers do not show current increase or decrease trends. Also, they do not show chances of acceptances, since the crucial number is how many minimally "Muslim-named" legible candidates apply at all.

The question I've answered is predicated on the premise that a Muslim-named candidate with equivalent track record and a non-Muslim-named candidates are evaluated. I still maintain that diversity-points would play a clear role in these cases, because of clear university messages to consider diversity issues, as well as the regulatory audits (and diversity "targets" or "desires"). It is quite unreasonable to assume that a committee would bias against a BAME candidate with equal credentials.

And indeed, I don't see any evidence in the data to show such current biases occur for instance in STEM.

PS. "White, Asian, Black, Mixed" -- what is Middle-eastern then?

I wouldn't claim that this data prove bias either way.

But you claimed that there is active bias towards such people. I think that is a claim that requires evidence.

While the data doesn't prove that Muslim people are discriminated against, I think its a bold move to take the idea they are discriminated for as the null hypothesis (the position to be assumed in the absence of evidence) when they are under-represented.

I do claim that there is at least some "implicit" bias: if in recruitment lists you mention clearly ethnicity of candidates, and admin talks about "diversity", and leadership talks about "diversity targets", isn't it very reasonable to assume there'll be bias?

I don't think the position that there is a current clear push (and thus some bias) towards "diversity hires" is bolder than, say, the position taken by some admin/HE-leadership that there is a curent (conscious or unconscious bias) against BAME/Women.

Ian Sudbery, are you sure that 30% of the population is BAME? Do you have a specific document from the Higher Education Statistics Agency that says that? This government page says the population was 86% white in England and Wales in 2011. ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/…