Should restricting UK public body internships to ethnic minorities be treated as unlawful discrimination?
UK public bodies including the National Audit Office, MI5, MI6, GCHQ and some councils run paid internships open only to ethnic minority, female or disadvantaged applicants to address under-representation. The Equality Act 2010 permits positive action under sections 158 and 159 to encourage participation where a group is underrepresented, but positive discrimination in recruitment is unlawful. Legal challenges such as the 2026 claim against the 10,000 Black Interns programme question whether exclusive schemes cross into direct race discrimination.
35 Opinions
The best person for a job should get the job regardless of race or gender.
"This is the essence of discrimination: formulating opinions about others not based on their individual merits, but rather on their membership in a group with assumed characteristics." - Philadelphia movie, 1994 That doesn't seem to recommend disadvantaging one group to help another, does it?
Entrenched institutional racism and unconscious discrimination are not going to vanish overnight. Until then, modest instances of affirmative action remain essential to move towards more fairness.
I voted no because this is a non issue. Every year on social media these posts will be shown by those with a certain political slant. One click on to the organisations website and you’ll see another 20 internships with no DEI requirements. Only one is for ethnic minority solely that I recall and that was because it was funded by a charity with aims to improve chances. The other DEI internships also include white children from disadvantaged homes.
YES Simply because if say for example priority was given to say young white lads everyone would be rightly saying there's was discrimination against females, older people & other ethnicities.. So it must also be equally discrimination by ruling out white lads
Public bodies seem to have misapplied the Public Sector Equality Duty. Yes, you can positively discriminate in favour of one protected characteristic, but never by negatively discriminating against the other eight PCs, or by picking a favourite PC just because their vocal, well-funded activists insist you do (TRAs, BLM and Islam). Class isn't a PC, weirdly.
Merit. Earned. Best qualifications. Knowledge. Not black, white ,muslim,Indian ,disabled,
Positive discrimination risks excluding higher calibre candidates from any demographic. This is an obvious political sop and should be condemned by all leaders as anti- competitive.
Yes, but as one other opinion very wisely points out, there is a much bigger problem of unofficial unpaid internships for the wealthiest children whose parents have connections. If the only way to balance the playing field is with internships targeted at working class children, then it could work. But ethnicity shouldn't be a factor at all, it should be around household income.
We need to know more about unpaid internships that only benefit children of wealthy parents. These are public sector jobs, not a private club for the privileged. The only positive discrimination that makes sense is to prioritise merit first. Then, address the division of our society by social-class and poverty.