Once again, for the hard of thinking, especially @kjh
Here are just some of the laws that prevent American employers being racist and sexist
“In the United States, several laws explicitly prohibit racist hiring practices and ensure equal employment opportunities. Here are the key ones:
1. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Prohibits: Discrimination in hiring, firing, compensation, and other employment practices based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. • Covers: Employers with 15 or more employees. • Enforced by: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
2. Civil Rights Act of 1866 (Section 1981) • Prohibits: Racial discrimination in the making and enforcement of contracts, which includes employment contracts. • Covers: All employers, regardless of size. • Notable Aspect: Allows employees to bypass the EEOC and go straight to court.
3. Equal Pay Act of 1963 • Prohibits: Pay discrimination based on sex, but it also intersects with race and other protected characteristics in cases of intersectional discrimination. • Covers: Employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
4. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act • Prohibits: Discrimination against individuals with disabilities, but also supports equality for employees of all races with disabilities. • Covers: Employers with 15 or more employees.
5. The Fair Housing Act (related to workplace housing benefits) • Prohibits: Discrimination based on race or ethnicity in housing, which can overlap with employment practices related to housing benefits or relocations.
6. State and Local Anti-Discrimination Laws • Many states and cities have their own laws that go beyond federal protections. For example: • California: Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). • New York: Human Rights Law.
These laws collectively create a framework that aims to prevent and address racial discrimination in hiring and employment. Employers found violating these laws can face lawsuits, fines, and other penalties.”
What these laws DON’T allow you to do is racially discriminate against, say, whites or Asians in the interests of “affirmative action”
So change the laws that are wrong. Don't cancel the one that gives the very most basic rights.
It is difficult to believe you are so irrational.
As I said if cancelling has no effect why do it? Showmanship I assume, but it sends an awful message. If it does have an effect (which I doubt because of later laws) then it is awful.
I assumed you were referring to this post of yours in your previous reply, but I couldn't believe you were that dumb that you thought that was in anyway a reply to my point
PS I only point out how stupid you are, because you do it to everyone else. Wouldn't do it to anyone else myself normally, but really you often fail to follow a logical flow and often refer to stuff incorrectly or refer to something that is patently wrong.
Oh and as for referring to people overeating here, pot and kettle comes to mind (daily).
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Convicted benefits cheats who fail to pay back the taxpayer could be stripped of their driving licences, under government plans to crack down on fraud. Those who repeatedly cheat the system and have debts of £1,000 or more could be punished with a driving ban of up to two years.
The plans also include new powers to force banks to hand over account information about benefit claimants to help target investigations, echoing a scheme announced by the previous Conservative government. But this is likely to face strong opposition from the banks and privacy campaigners.
How does it possibly help society to remove driving licences for non-driving offences?
All that happens is that someone working to pay their debts ends up losing their job, which isn’t going to help the situation.
If you employ more than a couple of people then chances are you will have received an attachment of earnings order from a court that relates to a whole host of unpaid debts. I have had employees with deductions that have gone back as far as 15 years from the original magistrates order (employee had worked for us for 15 months before I recieved notification).
It would be far better making the existing system work (benefits can be reduced, attachments of earning can be swiftly processed), than adding more penalties that in all likelihood won't be imposed.
It will need a court order so there is some checks and balances - which just adds more work, delays and costs to an over worked judicial system.
It seems like a gimmick and more performative nonsense from the government to make them look 'tough'.
A similar performative nonsense was solicitor general, Lucy Rigby, referring Urfan Sharif's sentence to the Court of Appeal for undue leniency. He was sentenced to life with a 40 year minimum tarriff. He would not even be eligible for parole until he aged 83. A heinous crime but the sentence feels right and I doubt the CoA will increase it. But appealing it makes the solicitor general look tough. Perfomative nonsense - please stop it.
I agree. Although I suspect there is a difference, in that Sharif's case was probably politically motivated, with the initiative coming from the minister, whereas the 'banning driving as a general punishment' idea has been kicking around the government for ages and may well have resurfaced as a civil service suggestion / option, whether off-the-shelf, or an individual official pushing the idea as a pet project.
One issue about banning people from driving is that the penalty is disproportionally severe on people who live in areas with inadequate public transport.
And on people who are less well off. In most areas of the U.K, property prices (rental or purchase) are a function, primarily, of access to public transport and local school quality.
There’s a reason that property developers love a Tube station opening in London.
So we have numerous posts here justifying it because it exists in other laws. Well good and lets hope he doesn't do anything about them, but really that is your justification. Really? So you think Trump was just doing a bit of tidying up while he was signing EOs to release a few criminals in his circle, or do you think maybe he was trying to make a point.
Those justifying his actions here are pathetic. They are justifying bigotry.
All of this will get tested in court. That's where what is and is not permissible will be decided. And courts in different parts of the US are going to see things differently, so it will end up at SCOTUS. The key question is: does a business have the absolute right to employ who it wants for whatever reason it wants? I would not bet against the current court deciding it does. But it will take several years to get there.
It’s a bit like Roe v Wade will never be overturned and then Trump enabled it to happen.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
Yeah. And there is still work to do. It is naive to think that all these problems and inbuild prejudices have disappeared because they haven’t
Sure, but we've reached a point where enough progress has been made that policies that have become counterproductive need to be moved on from.
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
Can't believe we are back onto should we build a third runway at Heathrow?
We're not. It looks like we're debating if Musk is a Nazi (he isn't) was it a Hitler salute (it wasn't) was there any good in the Holocaust (there wasn't)
Still, it's better (marginally) than the endless droning on about Brexit from diehard Remainers who have not come to "acceptance" on the grief cycle.
I hesitate to respond to this, as a remainer myself, for fear of being called a snide twat. I appreciate that your side won and that snide insults are only permitted in one direction.
However, this “endless droning on” amounts to, what, one wry post per day on average? About one of the most divisive and disruptive events in Britain’s recent political history. On a politics forum.
Per 'all remainers' or per poster? Per poster, that would be pretty extreme.
Once again, for the hard of thinking, especially @kjh
Here are just some of the laws that prevent American employers being racist and sexist
“In the United States, several laws explicitly prohibit racist hiring practices and ensure equal employment opportunities. Here are the key ones:
1. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Prohibits: Discrimination in hiring, firing, compensation, and other employment practices based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. • Covers: Employers with 15 or more employees. • Enforced by: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
2. Civil Rights Act of 1866 (Section 1981) • Prohibits: Racial discrimination in the making and enforcement of contracts, which includes employment contracts. • Covers: All employers, regardless of size. • Notable Aspect: Allows employees to bypass the EEOC and go straight to court.
3. Equal Pay Act of 1963 • Prohibits: Pay discrimination based on sex, but it also intersects with race and other protected characteristics in cases of intersectional discrimination. • Covers: Employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
4. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act • Prohibits: Discrimination against individuals with disabilities, but also supports equality for employees of all races with disabilities. • Covers: Employers with 15 or more employees.
5. The Fair Housing Act (related to workplace housing benefits) • Prohibits: Discrimination based on race or ethnicity in housing, which can overlap with employment practices related to housing benefits or relocations.
6. State and Local Anti-Discrimination Laws • Many states and cities have their own laws that go beyond federal protections. For example: • California: Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). • New York: Human Rights Law.
These laws collectively create a framework that aims to prevent and address racial discrimination in hiring and employment. Employers found violating these laws can face lawsuits, fines, and other penalties.”
What these laws DON’T allow you to do is racially discriminate against, say, whites or Asians in the interests of “affirmative action”
So change the laws that are wrong. Don't cancel the one that gives the very most basic rights
It is difficult to believe you are so irrational.
As I said if cancelling has no effect why do it? Showmanship I assume, but it sends an awful message. If it does have an effect (which I doubt because of later laws) then it is awful.
I assumed you were referring to this post of yours in your previous reply, but I couldn't believe you were that dumb that you thought that was in anyway a reply to my point
PS Only point out how stupid you are, because you do it to everyone else. Wouldn't do it to anyone else myself normally, but really you often fail to follow a logical flow and often refer to stuff incorrectly or refer to something that is patently wrong.
Oh and as for referring to people overeating here, pt and kettle comes to mind (daily).
It has effect because it removes the affirmative action part, which was only ever introduced by executive order.
So we have numerous posts here justifying it because it exists in other laws. Well good and lets hope he doesn't do anything about them, but really that is your justification. Really? So you think Trump was just doing a bit of tidying up while he was signing EOs to release a few criminals in his circle, or do you think maybe he was trying to make a point.
Those justifying his actions here are pathetic. They are justifying bigotry.
All of this will get tested in court. That's where what is and is not permissible will be decided. And courts in different parts of the US are going to see things differently, so it will end up at SCOTUS. The key question is: does a business have the absolute right to employ who it wants for whatever reason it wants? I would not bet against the current court deciding it does. But it will take several years to get there.
It’s a bit like Roe v Wade will never be overturned and then Trump enabled it to happen.
Yep. His control of the Supreme Court is absolutely crucial. There's a line from all his EOs to that.
What this thread does demonstrate is how social media melts the borders of domestic political argument. You’re all here debating a US measure that affects only US citizens as if it’s our country, in a way we’d never get with French or German or even Canadian laws. Yet the history and context of race relations there is completely different from our own.
I look forward to getting back to domestic UK politics and Trump’s more international sorties.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
If they weren't qualified or the best person for the role, then yes. People should be judged by the content of their character, not their race, sex etc...
Without that affirmative action historically you wouldn’t see half as many women doctors, lawyers, or engineers because they would still be closed shops. I am not talking about in America either, I am talking about in this country.
How do you know that? On what are you basing this theory?
It is plain to see in my own working life. Senior lawyers still subconsciously (and consciously) discriminate against women because of fears about pregnancies and childcare. They have had to have been forced into change because of things like affirmative action.
That’s a sweeping statement based on, I’m guessing (like you),” feels” rather than you actually conducting surveys with the protection of anonymity.
More important than affirmative action in increasing the numbers of females in professions such as law and medicine are cultural changes and the increase in women feeling they can/should go and study these subjects rather than settling for being a housewife. That was not about affirmative action it was about culture changes.
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
So do you think that affirmative action was necessary as a temporary measure to deal with historical legacies but should be abolished at some point now that the cultural change has happened?
Can't believe we are back onto should we build a third runway at Heathrow?
We're not. It looks like we're debating if Musk is a Nazi (he isn't) was it a Hitler salute (it wasn't) was there any good in the Holocaust (there wasn't)
Still, it's better (marginally) than the endless droning on about Brexit from diehard Remainers who have not come to "acceptance" on the grief cycle.
I hesitate to respond to this, as a remainer myself, for fear of being called a snide twat. I appreciate that your side won and that snide insults are only permitted in one direction.
However, this “endless droning on” amounts to, what, one wry post per day on average? About one of the most divisive and disruptive events in Britain’s recent political history. On a politics forum.
Per 'all remainers' or per poster? Per poster, that would be pretty extreme.
I’ve not done the stats but I would guess 1 per all remainers - that was my meaning.
Compare with post volumes on other contentious topics. Brexit is rarely a major topic of debate on here.
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
The same affirmative action in recent years at the top universities and the top law firms has enabled more and more people of working class backgrounds to become top lawyers. That doesn’t take anything away from them or their intelligence, skill or ability. But without forcing that culture change people in senior positions would simply have kept hiring people from similar backgrounds to themselves. It is naive or indeed malicious to pretend otherwise. The evidence is right there in front of you.
Obviously in the UK it is more about sex and class rather than race but I am willing to bet that black people are still severely underrepresented in certain professions in the States. Happy to be proven wrong.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
Yeah. And there is still work to do. It is naive to think that all these problems and inbuild prejudices have disappeared because they haven’t
Sure, but we've reached a point where enough progress has been made that policies that have become counterproductive need to be moved on from.
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
The same affirmative action in recent years at the top universities and the top law firms has enabled more and more people of working class backgrounds to become top lawyers. That doesn’t take anything away from them or their intelligence, skill or ability. But without forcing that culture change people in senior positions would simply have kept hiring people from similar backgrounds to themselves. It is naive or indeed malicious to pretend otherwise. The evidence is right there in front of you.
Obviously in the UK it is more about sex and class rather than race but I am willing to bet that black people are still severely underrepresented in certain professions in the States. Happy to be proven wrong.
Part of the issue is the importation of American terms. Like affirmative action. Let the UK work out its own path rather than slavishly following the culture wars across the Atlantic.
Can't believe we are back onto should we build a third runway at Heathrow?
We're not. It looks like we're debating if Musk is a Nazi (he isn't) was it a Hitler salute (it wasn't) was there any good in the Holocaust (there wasn't)
Still, it's better (marginally) than the endless droning on about Brexit from diehard Remainers who have not come to "acceptance" on the grief cycle.
I hesitate to respond to this, as a remainer myself, for fear of being called a snide twat. I appreciate that your side won and that snide insults are only permitted in one direction.
However, this “endless droning on” amounts to, what, one wry post per day on average? About one of the most divisive and disruptive events in Britain’s recent political history. On a politics forum.
Per 'all remainers' or per poster? Per poster, that would be pretty extreme.
I’ve not done the stats but I would guess 1 per all remainers - that was my meaning.
Compare with post volumes on other contentious topics. Brexit is rarely a major topic of debate on here.
If that's the case I think ScottP uses your rations almost every time he comes on.
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
Historically cultural changes happen by multiple means - affirmative action is a very new attempt to force change in human history.
Feminism made huge changes to culture without any form of affirmative action. Secularism has made huge changes to culture without affirmative action. Large scale public “acceptance” of homosexuality took place without affirmative action.
You are reverse engineering from “we have affirmative action to increase numbers of women and other groups in professions” to “affirmative action is the reason why we have women and other groups in professions” which massively overstates its role in cultural change and massively understates other cultural factors and sacrifices by people to make these changes when there was no such concept as affirmative action.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
Yeah. And there is still work to do. It is naive to think that all these problems and inbuild prejudices have disappeared because they haven’t
Sure, but we've reached a point where enough progress has been made that policies that have become counterproductive need to be moved on from.
He has cancelled the most basic rights (not that that will have any impact because of later ones), but not the ones that have gone too far. That seems like an odd thing to do doesn't it.
Yesterday you got yourself in a tangle over climate change and the wording of who has a cervix, both of which were dancing on a pin head. Why don't you just come out with it and say you don't believe in climate change and all this woke nonsense and employers should be able to discriminate as they like.
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
So do you think that affirmative action was necessary as a temporary measure to deal with historical legacies but should be abolished at some point now that the cultural change has happened?
Remember affirmative action isn’t about picking someone worse for the job, but rather about picking someone to increase diversity whereby suitability is perhaps in the balance. It is also about encouraging people to consider careers or jobs where they might have felt excluded.
Personally I think a team that is 90% women would benefit from having more men. I think that a team that is 90% black would benefit from having more people from other backgrounds. I don’t think “affirmative action” is all or nothing and it works in both cases.
Do PB Tories think that it is bad to encourage more male teachers in primary schools because they are severely underrepresented?
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
Yeah. And there is still work to do. It is naive to think that all these problems and inbuild prejudices have disappeared because they haven’t
Sure, but we've reached a point where enough progress has been made that policies that have become counterproductive need to be moved on from.
He has cancelled the most basic rights (not that that will have any impact because of later ones), but not the ones that have gone too far. That seems like an odd thing to do doesn't it.
Yesterday you got yourself in a tangle over climate change and the wording of who has a cervix, both of which were dancing on a pin head. Why don't you just come out with it and say you don't believe in climate change and all this woke nonsense and employers should be able to discriminate as they like.
No, he hasn’t. Non-discrimination is enshrined in other acts of congress, which are not repealed by the executive order.
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
So do you think that affirmative action was necessary as a temporary measure to deal with historical legacies but should be abolished at some point now that the cultural change has happened?
Remember affirmative action isn’t about picking someone worse for the job, but rather about picking someone to increase diversity whereby suitability is perhaps in the balance.
Personally I think a team that is 90% women would benefit from having more men. I think that a team that is 90% black would benefit from having more people from other backgrounds. I don’t think “affirmative action” is all or nothing and it works in both cases.
Do PB Tories think that it is bad to encourage more male teachers in primary schools because they are severely underrepresented?
Are you avoiding the question or are you saying that it should be permanent?
A large part of the problem with DEI is assuming that there is a correct level of representation instead of going with the flow of society. If there are more female than male primary school teachers, what's the problem?
Can't believe we are back onto should we build a third runway at Heathrow?
We're not. It looks like we're debating if Musk is a Nazi (he isn't) was it a Hitler salute (it wasn't) was there any good in the Holocaust (there wasn't)
Still, it's better (marginally) than the endless droning on about Brexit from diehard Remainers who have not come to "acceptance" on the grief cycle.
I hesitate to respond to this, as a remainer myself, for fear of being called a snide twat. I appreciate that your side won and that snide insults are only permitted in one direction.
However, this “endless droning on” amounts to, what, one wry post per day on average? About one of the most divisive and disruptive events in Britain’s recent political history. On a politics forum.
Per 'all remainers' or per poster? Per poster, that would be pretty extreme.
I’ve not done the stats but I would guess 1 per all remainers - that was my meaning.
Compare with post volumes on other contentious topics. Brexit is rarely a major topic of debate on here.
Yep, debate is a misnomer. Whiny bickering a bit more like it.
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
So do you think that affirmative action was necessary as a temporary measure to deal with historical legacies but should be abolished at some point now that the cultural change has happened?
Remember affirmative action isn’t about picking someone worse for the job, but rather about picking someone to increase diversity whereby suitability is perhaps in the balance.
Personally I think a team that is 90% women would benefit from having more men. I think that a team that is 90% black would benefit from having more people from other backgrounds. I don’t think “affirmative action” is all or nothing and it works in both cases.
Do PB Tories think that it is bad to encourage more male teachers in primary schools because they are severely underrepresented?
Are you avoiding the question or are you saying that it should be permanent?
A large part of the problem with DEI is assuming that there is a correct level of representation instead of going with the flow of society. If there are more female than male primary school teachers, what's the problem?
I stand by my comment and my question. I personally think primary school children would benefit from being taught by both male and female teachers so in that example I do consider it to be a problem, yes.
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
So do you think that affirmative action was necessary as a temporary measure to deal with historical legacies but should be abolished at some point now that the cultural change has happened?
Remember affirmative action isn’t about picking someone worse for the job, but rather about picking someone to increase diversity whereby suitability is perhaps in the balance. It is also about encouraging people to consider careers or jobs where they might have felt excluded.
Personally I think a team that is 90% women would benefit from having more men. I think that a team that is 90% black would benefit from having more people from other backgrounds. I don’t think “affirmative action” is all or nothing and it works in both cases.
Do PB Tories think that it is bad to encourage more male teachers in primary schools because they are severely underrepresented?
Does this apply to jobs like track workers at Network Rail? That is an overwhelmingly male job. Do we want more women to do it? Or is it only the nice jobs that need to be split more equally? Where does primary school teacher fit in that continuum?
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
Yeah. And there is still work to do. It is naive to think that all these problems and inbuild prejudices have disappeared because they haven’t
Sure, but we've reached a point where enough progress has been made that policies that have become counterproductive need to be moved on from.
Is that based on evidence, or on vibes?
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003). "race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time. The Court takes the Law School at its word that it would like nothing better than to find a race-neutral admissions formula and will terminate its use of racial preferences as soon as practicable. The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today." (majority opinion)
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
So do you think that affirmative action was necessary as a temporary measure to deal with historical legacies but should be abolished at some point now that the cultural change has happened?
Remember affirmative action isn’t about picking someone worse for the job, but rather about picking someone to increase diversity whereby suitability is perhaps in the balance. It is also about encouraging people to consider careers or jobs where they might have felt excluded.
Personally I think a team that is 90% women would benefit from having more men. I think that a team that is 90% black would benefit from having more people from other backgrounds. I don’t think “affirmative action” is all or nothing and it works in both cases.
Do PB Tories think that it is bad to encourage more male teachers in primary schools because they are severely underrepresented?
Does this apply to jobs like track workers at Network Rail? That is an overwhelmingly male job. Do we want more women to do it? Or is it only the nice jobs that need to be split more equally? Where does primary school teacher fit in that continuum?
I think it would benefit Network Rail to have more women track workers, so yes. Why not? They might be more productive.
Once again, for the hard of thinking, especially @kjh
Here are just some of the laws that prevent American employers being racist and sexist
“In the United States, several laws explicitly prohibit racist hiring practices and ensure equal employment opportunities. Here are the key ones:
1. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Prohibits: Discrimination in hiring, firing, compensation, and other employment practices based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. • Covers: Employers with 15 or more employees. • Enforced by: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
2. Civil Rights Act of 1866 (Section 1981) • Prohibits: Racial discrimination in the making and enforcement of contracts, which includes employment contracts. • Covers: All employers, regardless of size. • Notable Aspect: Allows employees to bypass the EEOC and go straight to court.
3. Equal Pay Act of 1963 • Prohibits: Pay discrimination based on sex, but it also intersects with race and other protected characteristics in cases of intersectional discrimination. • Covers: Employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
4. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act • Prohibits: Discrimination against individuals with disabilities, but also supports equality for employees of all races with disabilities. • Covers: Employers with 15 or more employees.
5. The Fair Housing Act (related to workplace housing benefits) • Prohibits: Discrimination based on race or ethnicity in housing, which can overlap with employment practices related to housing benefits or relocations.
6. State and Local Anti-Discrimination Laws • Many states and cities have their own laws that go beyond federal protections. For example: • California: Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). • New York: Human Rights Law.
These laws collectively create a framework that aims to prevent and address racial discrimination in hiring and employment. Employers found violating these laws can face lawsuits, fines, and other penalties.”
What these laws DON’T allow you to do is racially discriminate against, say, whites or Asians in the interests of “affirmative action”
So change the laws that are wrong. Don't cancel the one that gives the very most basic rights
It is difficult to believe you are so irrational.
As I said if cancelling has no effect why do it? Showmanship I assume, but it sends an awful message. If it does have an effect (which I doubt because of later laws) then it is awful.
I assumed you were referring to this post of yours in your previous reply, but I couldn't believe you were that dumb that you thought that was in anyway a reply to my point
PS Only point out how stupid you are, because you do it to everyone else. Wouldn't do it to anyone else myself normally, but really you often fail to follow a logical flow and often refer to stuff incorrectly or refer to something that is patently wrong.
Oh and as for referring to people overeating here, pt and kettle comes to mind (daily).
It has effect because it removes the affirmative action part, which was only ever introduced by executive order.
Are people actually reading it?
The reference to affirmative action is to NOT discriminate. There is NO affirmative action to positively discriminate for minorities.
How is that unreasonable? There is no requirement to say employ jews or blacks. There is a requirement to stop a racist manager from refusing to employ them. There is a requirement to not have separate bathrooms for black and white employees. Again what is wrong with that.
Convicted benefits cheats who fail to pay back the taxpayer could be stripped of their driving licences, under government plans to crack down on fraud. Those who repeatedly cheat the system and have debts of £1,000 or more could be punished with a driving ban of up to two years.
The plans also include new powers to force banks to hand over account information about benefit claimants to help target investigations, echoing a scheme announced by the previous Conservative government. But this is likely to face strong opposition from the banks and privacy campaigners.
How does it possibly help society to remove driving licences for non-driving offences?
All that happens is that someone working to pay their debts ends up losing their job, which isn’t going to help the situation.
If you employ more than a couple of people then chances are you will have received an attachment of earnings order from a court that relates to a whole host of unpaid debts. I have had employees with deductions that have gone back as far as 15 years from the original magistrates order (employee had worked for us for 15 months before I recieved notification).
It would be far better making the existing system work (benefits can be reduced, attachments of earning can be swiftly processed), than adding more penalties that in all likelihood won't be imposed.
It will need a court order so there is some checks and balances - which just adds more work, delays and costs to an over worked judicial system.
It seems like a gimmick and more performative nonsense from the government to make them look 'tough'.
A similar performative nonsense was solicitor general, Lucy Rigby, referring Urfan Sharif's sentence to the Court of Appeal for undue leniency. He was sentenced to life with a 40 year minimum tarriff. He would not even be eligible for parole until he aged 83. A heinous crime but the sentence feels right and I doubt the CoA will increase it. But appealing it makes the solicitor general look tough. Perfomative nonsense - please stop it.
I agree. Although I suspect there is a difference, in that Sharif's case was probably politically motivated, with the initiative coming from the minister, whereas the 'banning driving as a general punishment' idea has been kicking around the government for ages and may well have resurfaced as a civil service suggestion / option, whether off-the-shelf, or an individual official pushing the idea as a pet project.
One issue about banning people from driving is that the penalty is disproportionally severe on people who live in areas with inadequate public transport.
Surely if we actually wanted some performative cruelty to make these people go out and do an honest day's labour, banning them from owning a TV and disconnecting their internet connection is rather more likely to be effective than removing their driving licenses (if they have them anyway).
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
Yeah. And there is still work to do. It is naive to think that all these problems and inbuild prejudices have disappeared because they haven’t
Sure, but we've reached a point where enough progress has been made that policies that have become counterproductive need to be moved on from.
He has cancelled the most basic rights (not that that will have any impact because of later ones), but not the ones that have gone too far. That seems like an odd thing to do doesn't it.
Yesterday you got yourself in a tangle over climate change and the wording of who has a cervix, both of which were dancing on a pin head. Why don't you just come out with it and say you don't believe in climate change and all this woke nonsense and employers should be able to discriminate as they like.
No, he hasn’t. Non-discrimination is enshrined in other acts of congress, which are not repealed by the executive order.
Agree and I said that in that post (first line in brackets). So why do it then?
New Lib Dem MPs proving to be as valuable as you would expect. Suspect there will be shortly be a broadcast where Amazon get the blame for this:
@BBCPolitics MPs call for more women footballers on birthday cards
(I can't be bothered to even post the link.)
Whether one sympathises with the sentiment or not that is a very weird thing to consider worthy of parliamentary time. Perhaps she could start a card company specialising in womens sport?
Suella Braverman wants the Tories to be more French.
Braverman: Tories and Reform must unite
Former home secretary says collaboration across the Right is ‘the formula to beat Labour’ and urges the Conservatives to copy Trump’s spirit
The Conservative Party needs to “unite” with Reform UK to defeat Labour, Suella Braverman has said.
During a trip to Washington DC for Donald Trump’s inauguration, the former home secretary advised a “coalition” with Nigel Farage’s party to unite the Right.
She praised the president’s brand of “unfiltered conservatism” and said the Tories needed to copy his success at making the “unsayable mainstream”.
Her stance will raise questions about the future direction of the Conservatives at a time when leader Kemi Badenoch is under pressure for losing further ground to Reform. The Tories trail Mr Farage’s party in the latest opinion polls.
First time Badenoch scored a clear win at PMQs today, I think.
Good. There's plenty where this Government needs an effective Opposition. Let's hope her improvement continues.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 4m Kemi Badenoch wisely didn’t go on Southport. And put in a good PMQs performance, probably her best as leader.
Exactly what the Tories should be doing. Create distance between them and Reform. There are so many thins Farage will not talk about - the NHS, schools, infrastructure etc - and that people across politics really care about. That's where the Tories should be focusing. Talking about immigration, grooming gangs etc is a gift to Reform.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
Yeah. And there is still work to do. It is naive to think that all these problems and inbuild prejudices have disappeared because they haven’t
Sure, but we've reached a point where enough progress has been made that policies that have become counterproductive need to be moved on from.
He has cancelled the most basic rights (not that that will have any impact because of later ones), but not the ones that have gone too far. That seems like an odd thing to do doesn't it.
Yesterday you got yourself in a tangle over climate change and the wording of who has a cervix, both of which were dancing on a pin head. Why don't you just come out with it and say you don't believe in climate change and all this woke nonsense and employers should be able to discriminate as they like.
No, he hasn’t. Non-discrimination is enshrined in other acts of congress, which are not repealed by the executive order.
Agree and I said that in that post (first line in brackets). So why do it then?
Because, as has now beem explained to you by several people; using quite short words, that LBJ EO is the foundation stone of the Woke/Diversity industry. And if you want to roll it all away, you need to get rid of that - which kicked it all off
The many many laws which prohibit racial and sexiual discrimination in hiring etc etc etc all remain firmly in place
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
Well, that is a matter of debate. We know that many areas of employment show biases. That is, historically, they have been, e.g., choosing less able men over more able women. This is bad for women. It is also bad for the area of employment, which is systematically employing less able people over more able people. It's bad for productivity, etc.
Such practices can be self-reinforcing. For example, people are used to seeing men in a particular job, so they continue choosing less able men over more able women. How do you overcome that?
One way is to temporarily choose more women through affirmative action. That action is discriminatory (positive discrimination), but doing so may fix ongoing biases in the employment sector. The idea is that you reduce discrimination overall.
Whether that (a) works and (b) is ethical can be debated.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
Yeah. And there is still work to do. It is naive to think that all these problems and inbuild prejudices have disappeared because they haven’t
Sure, but we've reached a point where enough progress has been made that policies that have become counterproductive need to be moved on from.
He has cancelled the most basic rights (not that that will have any impact because of later ones), but not the ones that have gone too far. That seems like an odd thing to do doesn't it.
Yesterday you got yourself in a tangle over climate change and the wording of who has a cervix, both of which were dancing on a pin head. Why don't you just come out with it and say you don't believe in climate change and all this woke nonsense and employers should be able to discriminate as they like.
No, he hasn’t. Non-discrimination is enshrined in other acts of congress, which are not repealed by the executive order.
Agree and I said that in that post (first line in brackets). So why do it then?
Yes, that's the puzzle. Is it just so Donald can say 'I abolished Affirmative Action' knowing that his admirers will lap it up without bothering to see if there are any real-world implications? This could just be a hollow token gesture.
New Lib Dem MPs proving to be as valuable as you would expect. Suspect there will be shortly be a broadcast where Amazon get the blame for this:
@BBCPolitics MPs call for more women footballers on birthday cards
(I can't be bothered to even post the link.)
Ha ha, what an idiot. Probably the sort who has pronouns in their bio.
I thought this was a joke, or satire, but it is true. Some nonentity called Helen Maguire and it is the duty of birthday card vendors to promote equality in sport !!!
"Liberal Democrat MP Helen Maguire tabled a motion in the House of Commons to raise her concerns and call for action.
She told the BBC the industry was "not moving with the times" and should do more to promote gender equality in sport."
New Lib Dem MPs proving to be as valuable as you would expect. Suspect there will be shortly be a broadcast where Amazon get the blame for this:
@BBCPolitics MPs call for more women footballers on birthday cards
(I can't be bothered to even post the link.)
Whether one sympathises with the sentiment or not that is a very weird thing to consider worthy of parliamentary time. Perhaps she could start a card company specialising in womens sport?
Consumer demand will drive this, as a card manufacturer says, not simpleton MP's looking to make a name for themselves.
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
So do you think that affirmative action was necessary as a temporary measure to deal with historical legacies but should be abolished at some point now that the cultural change has happened?
A Sunset clause for all legislation? Means that politicians would be constantly tied up in renewing or revising the existing legal base rather than spending time thinking of extending legal reach.
Could work but we'd need more politicians to keep up with the workload.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
If they weren't qualified or the best person for the role, then yes. People should be judged by the content of their character, not their race, sex etc...
Without that affirmative action historically you wouldn’t see half as many women doctors, lawyers, or engineers because they would still be closed shops. I am not talking about in America either, I am talking about in this country.
Why is meritocratic hiring insufficient?
Because it doesn't happen. If people were purely hired on merit, that would be great. However, what we frequently see is that hiring practices continue to be biased against traditional groups (women, ethnic minorities, disabled, etc.), even after equal pay legislation is introduced. For decades. Which harms individuals, society and the economy.
So, what do you do about that? How do you achieve truly meritocratic hiring? Ideas welcome.
One approach is to have HR staff looking out for sources of bias and trying to do something about them. Trump has gotten rid of such posts in the government. Another approach, a more contentious one, is affirmative action.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
If they weren't qualified or the best person for the role, then yes. People should be judged by the content of their character, not their race, sex etc...
Didn’t someone American once mention that they’d love their kids to live in a world where all that mattered was the content of their character..?
The idea that MLK would be supportive of Trump's actions today, or indeed of Trump's actions on any day, is absolutely ludicrous, Sandpit.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
What he has just done is cancel a law that stops you having racist policies. Either this has no effect because of other laws (good), so why do it, or it has an effect.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with Woke. This was 1965. This is about segregation, this is about hating blacks, hating jews, discriminating against women. This isn't about today's stuff.
So if some laws go too far regarding affirmative action, do something about them. Don't destroy the law that gives the most basic rights.
Doing so implies out and out bigotry.
To be picky, he hasn't cancelled a law. He has cancelled an Executive Order with another Executive Order.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
You may not have noticed, but there is plenty of racism and sexism still in the US.
Astonishing how quickly and openly the war on woke/DEI civil rights has extended to civil rights back to the 60s. I suppose that was always the plan.
The thing people are missing is that EOs are used by the Federal Government to implement these civil right laws. So you can quote as much legislation as you want - if the Supreme Court prostrate themselves to Trump then that's it.
Affirmative Action is certainly an industry in the U.S. and operates in a way that most Brits would find unacceptable.
I cannot speak to the specific legal constructs that have supported it over the years, but I presume Trump has chosen to address it at the core, ie the original EO which refers to “affirmative action”.
Affirmative Action is certainly an industry in the U.S. and operates in a way that most Brits would find unacceptable.
I cannot speak to the specific legal constructs that have supported it over the years, but I presume Trump has chosen to address it at the core, ie the original EO which refers to “affirmative action”.
Please educate the slightly dimmer PBers as to this reality. We've been trying for hours and it's not working
Affirmative Action is certainly an industry in the U.S. and operates in a way that most Brits would find unacceptable.
I cannot speak to the specific legal constructs that have supported it over the years, but I presume Trump has chosen to address it at the core, ie the original EO which refers to “affirmative action”.
It happens in the UK too, though in a less full-on way. ISTR a law passed by the Brown government that non-white candidates have to be given priority for employment over white? Certainly in the public sector and public sector-adjacent industries this is the standard approach whether it is directly legislated for or not. And companies have targets to recruit larger percentages of non-white staff at various levels - which has the same effect.
He appeared to think that his evidence would be beyond reproach and didn’t understand he could expect to be cross-examined. So he got his apology and a payout, but the argument about the (estimated $20m) legal costs is going to be fun.
Did they cave or did he blink or was it a bit of both. Speculation on the politics slot on GMB was he was made an offer however if he did not accept that offer then if the court decided on a different value, depending what it was, he could be on the hook for alot of court costs.
Also wasn't he supposed to want to bring this to court anyway to shine a light on their murky practises.
Like the Al-Fayed/Neil Hamilton court case it is one I would rather there were two losers.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
Yeah. And there is still work to do. It is naive to think that all these problems and inbuild prejudices have disappeared because they haven’t
Sure, but we've reached a point where enough progress has been made that policies that have become counterproductive need to be moved on from.
He has cancelled the most basic rights (not that that will have any impact because of later ones), but not the ones that have gone too far. That seems like an odd thing to do doesn't it.
Yesterday you got yourself in a tangle over climate change and the wording of who has a cervix, both of which were dancing on a pin head. Why don't you just come out with it and say you don't believe in climate change and all this woke nonsense and employers should be able to discriminate as they like.
No, he hasn’t. Non-discrimination is enshrined in other acts of congress, which are not repealed by the executive order.
Agree and I said that in that post (first line in brackets). So why do it then?
Because, as has now beem explained to you by several people; using quite short words, that LBJ EO is the foundation stone of the Woke/Diversity industry. And if you want to roll it all away, you need to get rid of that - which kicked it all off
The many many laws which prohibit racial and sexiual discrimination in hiring etc etc etc all remain firmly in place
Absolute crap. Firstly one person said it not many and it is nonsense. You don't get rid of something very sensible because you don't like something else that came later and then keep the duff stuff. I mean what nutty nonsense is that. Keep the good stuff and get rid of the bad stuff.
You know jolly well that is not Trump's aim. He is just throwing a bone to the idiots that follow him like you who can't think for themselves
Is the entire US media really about to lose their collective minds for the next four years?
You need to watch the video, it's obviously a fascist-style salute. Pictures of someone with a raised arm whether it's Musk or Jesus Christ are pretty meaningless so can someone link to a video of Obama doing something similar?
Also I know that Musk supports people like the AfD and promotes holocaust deniers, so my priors are different to Obama who AFAIK doesn't.
Nonsense, it's widely accepted that this gesture is a giving of your heart to the audience. Look at the guys on the left(sic) for example.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
If they weren't qualified or the best person for the role, then yes. People should be judged by the content of their character, not their race, sex etc...
Didn’t someone American once mention that they’d love their kids to live in a world where all that mattered was the content of their character..?
The idea that MLK would be supportive of Trump's actions today, or indeed of Trump's actions on any day, is absolutely ludicrous, Sandpit.
I will use up my daily image quota for this:
Both figures, however - DJT and MLK Jr - have been the focus of controversial rape allegations
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
If they weren't qualified or the best person for the role, then yes. People should be judged by the content of their character, not their race, sex etc...
Without that affirmative action historically you wouldn’t see half as many women doctors, lawyers, or engineers because they would still be closed shops. I am not talking about in America either, I am talking about in this country.
Why is meritocratic hiring insufficient?
Because it doesn't happen. If people were purely hired on merit, that would be great. However, what we frequently see is that hiring practices continue to be biased against traditional groups (women, ethnic minorities, disabled, etc.), even after equal pay legislation is introduced. For decades. Which harms individuals, society and the economy.
So, what do you do about that? How do you achieve truly meritocratic hiring? Ideas welcome.
One approach is to have HR staff looking out for sources of bias and trying to do something about them. Trump has gotten rid of such posts in the government. Another approach, a more contentious one, is affirmative action.
If people were hired on merit in the UK, we would live in a far better country than we do. But how do you legislate to prevent the mediocre products of our public schools hiring other mediocre products of our public schools?
Is the entire US media really about to lose their collective minds for the next four years?
You need to watch the video, it's obviously a fascist-style salute. Pictures of someone with a raised arm whether it's Musk or Jesus Christ are pretty meaningless so can someone link to a video of Obama doing something similar?
Also I know that Musk supports people like the AfD and promotes holocaust deniers, so my priors are different to Obama who AFAIK doesn't.
Nonsense, it's widely accepted that this gesture is a giving of your heart to the audience. Look at the guys on the left(sic) for example.
“Neo-Nazi Groups Hold Demonstrations In Orlando, FL ORLANDO, FLORIDA - SEPTEMBER 2: (EDITORS NOTE: Footage contains profanity.) People do the Heil Hitler salute as neo-Nazi groups Blood Tribe, and Goyim Defense League hold a rally on September 2, 2023 in Orlando, Florida. An event touted as the "Red Shirts March" and a show of unity for Neo-Nazis attracted about 100 people to participate. (Footage by Sandi Bachom/Getty Images)”
Affirmative Action is certainly an industry in the U.S. and operates in a way that most Brits would find unacceptable.
I cannot speak to the specific legal constructs that have supported it over the years, but I presume Trump has chosen to address it at the core, ie the original EO which refers to “affirmative action”.
That might be true. Both points you have made that is. In which case do something useful. What he has done has achieved nothing other than make the idiots who follow him think he has, which might be his motives or he wants to bring back full blown discrimination.
I am hoping the former. But he has literally ripped up the really good bit and ignored the duff stuff which is idiotic.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
Yeah. And there is still work to do. It is naive to think that all these problems and inbuild prejudices have disappeared because they haven’t
Sure, but we've reached a point where enough progress has been made that policies that have become counterproductive need to be moved on from.
He has cancelled the most basic rights (not that that will have any impact because of later ones), but not the ones that have gone too far. That seems like an odd thing to do doesn't it.
Yesterday you got yourself in a tangle over climate change and the wording of who has a cervix, both of which were dancing on a pin head. Why don't you just come out with it and say you don't believe in climate change and all this woke nonsense and employers should be able to discriminate as they like.
No, he hasn’t. Non-discrimination is enshrined in other acts of congress, which are not repealed by the executive order.
Agree and I said that in that post (first line in brackets). So why do it then?
Because, as has now beem explained to you by several people; using quite short words, that LBJ EO is the foundation stone of the Woke/Diversity industry. And if you want to roll it all away, you need to get rid of that - which kicked it all off
The many many laws which prohibit racial and sexiual discrimination in hiring etc etc etc all remain firmly in place
Absolute crap. Firstly one person said it not many and it is nonsense. You don't get rid of something very sensible because you don't like something else that came later and then keep the duff stuff. I mean what nutty nonsense is that. Keep the good stuff and get rid of the bad stuff.
You know jolly well that is not Trump's aim. He is just throwing a bone to the idiots that follow him like you who can't think for themselves
I know I chuck around “you’re stupid” comments like the confetti of insults, but the only conclusion I can reach from your comments today, passim, is that you are genuinely too thick to understand all this. I’ve given up trying
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
If they weren't qualified or the best person for the role, then yes. People should be judged by the content of their character, not their race, sex etc...
Without that affirmative action historically you wouldn’t see half as many women doctors, lawyers, or engineers because they would still be closed shops. I am not talking about in America either, I am talking about in this country.
Why is meritocratic hiring insufficient?
Because it doesn't happen. If people were purely hired on merit, that would be great. However, what we frequently see is that hiring practices continue to be biased against traditional groups (women, ethnic minorities, disabled, etc.), even after equal pay legislation is introduced. For decades. Which harms individuals, society and the economy.
So, what do you do about that? How do you achieve truly meritocratic hiring? Ideas welcome.
One approach is to have HR staff looking out for sources of bias and trying to do something about them. Trump has gotten rid of such posts in the government. Another approach, a more contentious one, is affirmative action.
If people were hired on merit in the UK, we would live in a far better country than we do. But how do you legislate to prevent the mediocre products of our public schools hiring other mediocre products of our public schools?
When do you think our society reached its peak in the level of meritocracy (assuming the answer isn't the present day)? Maybe the period just after the war?
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
If they weren't qualified or the best person for the role, then yes. People should be judged by the content of their character, not their race, sex etc...
Without that affirmative action historically you wouldn’t see half as many women doctors, lawyers, or engineers because they would still be closed shops. I am not talking about in America either, I am talking about in this country.
Why is meritocratic hiring insufficient?
Because it doesn't happen. If people were purely hired on merit, that would be great. However, what we frequently see is that hiring practices continue to be biased against traditional groups (women, ethnic minorities, disabled, etc.), even after equal pay legislation is introduced. For decades. Which harms individuals, society and the economy.
So, what do you do about that? How do you achieve truly meritocratic hiring? Ideas welcome.
One approach is to have HR staff looking out for sources of bias and trying to do something about them. Trump has gotten rid of such posts in the government. Another approach, a more contentious one, is affirmative action.
If people were hired on merit in the UK, we would live in a far better country than we do. But how do you legislate to prevent the mediocre products of our public schools hiring other mediocre products of our public schools?
When do you think our society reached its peak in the level of meritocracy (assuming the answer isn't the present day)? Maybe the period just after the war?
Well, at that time, women were certainly not treated on merit. They were being sent back to the kitchen from the munitions factories.
Did they cave or did he blink or was it a bit of both. Speculation on the politics slot on GMB was he was made an offer however if he did not accept that offer then if the court decided on a different value, depending what it was, he could be on the hook for alot of court costs.
Also wasn't he supposed to want to bring this to court anyway to shine a light on their murky practises.
Like the Al-Fayed/Neil Hamilton court case it is one I would rather there were two losers.
Your second para is how the system works. AIUI if the court award is less than the offer then the complainant pays costs. Harry could afford £10m (based on what he has from mum and other places), but it would be quite a chunk of what he has.
I'm going off the extended protestations of innocence followed by a settlement. That says guilty and wanting to avoid exposing the rest of teh iceberg.
TL:DR Women’s sports will become popular, and the competitors paid as much as their male counterparts, once women spend as much time watching and attending sports fixtures as men do.
I note December 2024 government borrowing was £7.7bn higher than December 2023.
Hard to lay the blame for that at the door of the Tories.
(Let the attempts commence here!)
Tories' fault for not borrowing so much last December, surely?
It's interesting, but I'd like to see the figures a few months either side, must be some random(ish) variation month to month depending when certain expenditures come due or tax announcements shifting when things are recorded?
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
Yeah. And there is still work to do. It is naive to think that all these problems and inbuild prejudices have disappeared because they haven’t
Sure, but we've reached a point where enough progress has been made that policies that have become counterproductive need to be moved on from.
I think that was one of the most comprehensive and grovelling apologies I’ve ever seen. Great to see Murdoch’s life work on all fours offering to be bummed.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
If they weren't qualified or the best person for the role, then yes. People should be judged by the content of their character, not their race, sex etc...
Without that affirmative action historically you wouldn’t see half as many women doctors, lawyers, or engineers because they would still be closed shops. I am not talking about in America either, I am talking about in this country.
Why is meritocratic hiring insufficient?
Because it doesn't happen. If people were purely hired on merit, that would be great. However, what we frequently see is that hiring practices continue to be biased against traditional groups (women, ethnic minorities, disabled, etc.), even after equal pay legislation is introduced. For decades. Which harms individuals, society and the economy.
So, what do you do about that? How do you achieve truly meritocratic hiring? Ideas welcome.
One approach is to have HR staff looking out for sources of bias and trying to do something about them. Trump has gotten rid of such posts in the government. Another approach, a more contentious one, is affirmative action.
If people were hired on merit in the UK, we would live in a far better country than we do. But how do you legislate to prevent the mediocre products of our public schools hiring other mediocre products of our public schools?
When do you think our society reached its peak in the level of meritocracy (assuming the answer isn't the present day)? Maybe the period just after the war?
No idea but I think people like me would have found it a lot tougher to get on now than we did back in the 1990s and early 2000s - and it was pretty tough then.
If you want to get to a point where we are arguing about grammar schools. let me save you the time: I support them, they were my springboard into a future I almost certainly would not have had otherwise. The issue for me is if you are to have them, how do you ensure they really do identify the right kids at 11 and what do you do with the large majority of kids that will not get into them?
I actually did not get into the grammar school I ended up in despite getting the required 1.1.1 and despite being the pupil who lived closest to the school. It was around a minute from my front door. At the time my Dad mended lifts and my Mum was a bar maid. The kid that lived second closest did not get in either. His Dad drove a taxi and his Mum did not work. We both got places in the end because two kids who lived further away dropped out and went private.
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
So do you think that affirmative action was necessary as a temporary measure to deal with historical legacies but should be abolished at some point now that the cultural change has happened?
Remember affirmative action isn’t about picking someone worse for the job, but rather about picking someone to increase diversity whereby suitability is perhaps in the balance. It is also about encouraging people to consider careers or jobs where they might have felt excluded.
Personally I think a team that is 90% women would benefit from having more men. I think that a team that is 90% black would benefit from having more people from other backgrounds. I don’t think “affirmative action” is all or nothing and it works in both cases.
Do PB Tories think that it is bad to encourage more male teachers in primary schools because they are severely underrepresented?
Affirmative action can mean a number of different things. You are describing a UK approach with US terminology. US policy went further than we did in the UK; arguably it needed to given the legacy of Jim Crow.
This whole Amazon knife thing, is there any evidence that restricting the sale of knives online either reducies the number of incidents of knife crime or the severity of the injuries?
As far as I can see from the actual data there doesn't appear to be any significant knife related uptick in homicide rates. The proportion of knife related homicides seems to follow the same trend of homicides overall. Sharp instruments make up about 40% of homicides quite consistently. So it's not the availability of knives that is the real issue but the ebb and flow of the homicide rate, which perhaps broadly tracks social and economic factors like growth, employment, etc.
Oh and kitchen knives are about 14 x more likely to be used in a homicide than a "zombie" knife.
Labour is inserting growth into every press release
In this one it is announcing plans to digitise the registration of deaths - a genuinely positive step that will make things easier for people during one of the hardest times of their lives
But is the current system of going to the registry office really 'getting in the way of growth', as the government puts it?
Please however feel free to tell Cyclefree she owes her career in law to affirmative action forcing open a door for her rather than her getting on and doing it.
That is a completely out of order.
You said that without affirmative action, you wouldn’t see half as many women lawyers.
Historically, yes. How do you think culture changes happen?
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
So do you think that affirmative action was necessary as a temporary measure to deal with historical legacies but should be abolished at some point now that the cultural change has happened?
Remember affirmative action isn’t about picking someone worse for the job, but rather about picking someone to increase diversity whereby suitability is perhaps in the balance.
Personally I think a team that is 90% women would benefit from having more men. I think that a team that is 90% black would benefit from having more people from other backgrounds. I don’t think “affirmative action” is all or nothing and it works in both cases.
Do PB Tories think that it is bad to encourage more male teachers in primary schools because they are severely underrepresented?
Are you avoiding the question or are you saying that it should be permanent?
A large part of the problem with DEI is assuming that there is a correct level of representation instead of going with the flow of society. If there are more female than male primary school teachers, what's the problem?
The flow of society has clearly been very wrong for centuries on the abilities of women, people who aren’t white, disabled people, working class people, non-Protestants, etc.
I think that was one of the most comprehensive and grovelling apologies I’ve ever seen. Great to see Murdoch’s life work on all fours offering to be bummed.
In one way it’s a pity it was settled before being heard in court. It would have been an ongoing reminder of the shittyness of our media. Now it will be forgotten about in a few days.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
If they weren't qualified or the best person for the role, then yes. People should be judged by the content of their character, not their race, sex etc...
Without that affirmative action historically you wouldn’t see half as many women doctors, lawyers, or engineers because they would still be closed shops. I am not talking about in America either, I am talking about in this country.
Why is meritocratic hiring insufficient?
Because it doesn't happen. If people were purely hired on merit, that would be great. However, what we frequently see is that hiring practices continue to be biased against traditional groups (women, ethnic minorities, disabled, etc.), even after equal pay legislation is introduced. For decades. Which harms individuals, society and the economy.
So, what do you do about that? How do you achieve truly meritocratic hiring? Ideas welcome.
One approach is to have HR staff looking out for sources of bias and trying to do something about them. Trump has gotten rid of such posts in the government. Another approach, a more contentious one, is affirmative action.
If people were hired on merit in the UK, we would live in a far better country than we do. But how do you legislate to prevent the mediocre products of our public schools hiring other mediocre products of our public schools?
When do you think our society reached its peak in the level of meritocracy (assuming the answer isn't the present day)? Maybe the period just after the war?
Social mobility was higher for people born in 1958 compared to those born in 1970 according to studies.
SKS Fans please explain why SKS Tories are in 3rd place!
This is going to get tiresome (not just from you) if the various factions on here post "X drops to third place!" every time we get a new poll with Ref, Con and Lab tied within MoE and a slightly different random ordering.
Also, I note that the LD lead over Green has GROWN BY 25%!!!!
This whole Amazon knife thing, is there any evidence that restricting the sale of knives online either reducies the number of incidents of knife crime or the severity of the injuries?
As far as I can see from the actual data there doesn't appear to be any significant knife related uptick in homicide rates. The proportion of knife related homicides seems to follow the same trend of homicides overall. Sharp instruments make up about 40% of homicides quite consistently. So it's not the availability of knives that is the real issue but the ebb and flow of the homicide rate, which perhaps broadly tracks social and economic factors like growth, employment, etc.
Oh and kitchen knives are about 14 x more likely to be used in a homicide than a "zombie" knife.
Don’t go bringing facts and data into an emotional debate, just ban Amazon from selling knives and chefs from taking the night bus home.
First time Badenoch scored a clear win at PMQs today, I think.
Why? Badenoch challenged Starmer twice on caps on teacher pay, which have been removed, so Starmer can demonstrate she's wrong on the facts.
Just how I saw it.
I’ve been her critic at PMQs. But on this one she stayed on a topic and Starmer didn’t look ready to discuss the substance and had to fall back on deflection tactics.
I suspect he’d prepared for Southport and wasn’t expecting education policy.
President Trump has signed an executive order rescinding Lyndon Johnson's EO 11246, which established affirmative action, and banning all federal contractors and publicly-funded universities from practicing race-based discrimination, including DEI.
A massive shift.
This is what anti-woke was always really about.
It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Those protections have now been removed for 20% of the US workforce.
I assume @Andy_JS has misunderstood and I hope that is the case for you two as well, but one can't tell, especially with someone who referred to Kemi as a coconut. Maybe you would like to comment, but the original executive order banned discrimination. It was NOT positive discrimination.
Trump's cancelling of an EO that has stood for 60 years means people can now discriminate against blacks, jews etc in employment. The only affirmative action was that they did not discriminate. They did not have to treat minorities favourable, just not treat them unfavourably.
And you object to that? Really?
I haven't read it all so am happy to be proved wrong.
This is complete drivel. You read it wrong
See my prior comment
Speaking seriously, I think the "affirmative action" mentioned in Johnson's EO 11246 (which prohibits race discrimination) is not the same as "affirmative action" in the 2020s (which enables it if deemed beneficial). This I assume causes all the confusion. Or have I misread it?
The legal underpinnings of what became 'woke' all date back to the original 60s legislation and Trump is serious about rolling it back.
The big one is disparate impact which treats unequal outcomes as evidence of discrimination and in effect makes meritocracy illegal in many cases.
Here's an example of disparate impact in action, with the Biden DOJ suing South Bend (of Pete Buttigieg fame) for using 'a written examination that discriminates against Black applicants and a physical fitness test that discriminates against female applicants'.
No I believe you, it's just that I don't think EO 11246 is an example of it. If I was getting rid of affirmative action (or taking disparate impact into account), then I wouldn't have started with EO 11246. Doing so comprehensively throws the baby out with the bathwater.
LBJ’s “affirmative action” order is the foundation stone on which the entire edifice of woke/DEI is built. It’s the beginning and kernel of the idea that you CAN discriminate by race and gender - against whites and men, but more recently East Asians in education etc - if it is perceived to achieve a greater societal good
Now, you may think it’s appalling that Trump Is reversing and demolishing all of this. The Diversity agenda, the Woke-Industrial Complex. But America is - just about - still a democracy and Trump was explicitly promising to do all this, if elected. He was elected
What he has NOT done is “suddenly made it legal to have racist hiring policies”, or “brought back Jim Crow laws” or any of that hysterical nonsense
So are you saying that it was wrong for industries historically dominated by men to consciously hire more women? Because that is the same thing.
It's wrong to choose a woman over a more qualified man for the sake of diversity, yes. Just as it would be wrong to hire a man over a more qualified woman to be a primary school teacher.
This is so naive and ignores years of careful dismantling of sexism BECAUSE of affirmative action.
You may not have noticed, but it's currently 2025 not 1970.
Yeah. And there is still work to do. It is naive to think that all these problems and inbuild prejudices have disappeared because they haven’t
Sure, but we've reached a point where enough progress has been made that policies that have become counterproductive need to be moved on from.
He has cancelled the most basic rights (not that that will have any impact because of later ones), but not the ones that have gone too far. That seems like an odd thing to do doesn't it.
Yesterday you got yourself in a tangle over climate change and the wording of who has a cervix, both of which were dancing on a pin head. Why don't you just come out with it and say you don't believe in climate change and all this woke nonsense and employers should be able to discriminate as they like.
No, he hasn’t. Non-discrimination is enshrined in other acts of congress, which are not repealed by the executive order.
Agree and I said that in that post (first line in brackets). So why do it then?
Because, as has now beem explained to you by several people; using quite short words, that LBJ EO is the foundation stone of the Woke/Diversity industry. And if you want to roll it all away, you need to get rid of that - which kicked it all off
The many many laws which prohibit racial and sexiual discrimination in hiring etc etc etc all remain firmly in place
Absolute crap. Firstly one person said it not many and it is nonsense. You don't get rid of something very sensible because you don't like something else that came later and then keep the duff stuff. I mean what nutty nonsense is that. Keep the good stuff and get rid of the bad stuff.
You know jolly well that is not Trump's aim. He is just throwing a bone to the idiots that follow him like you who can't think for themselves
I know I chuck around “you’re stupid” comments like the confetti of insults, but the only conclusion I can reach from your comments today, passim, is that you are genuinely too thick to understand all this. I’ve given up trying
Let us talk of happier things, old bean
So you don't have an answer to that then.
We have a whole lot of good stuff and a whole lot of bad stuff. The bad stuff followed the good stuff. So the logical thing to do is get rid of the good stuff and keep the bad stuff. Yes I can see that is logical in an idiots mind.
And the arguments keep changing. Others have said people are still protected by later laws so it is ok. Yet these are the ones you want to get rid of. And when you get rid of them you are going to have to reintroduce a version of LBJ's EO aren't you or are we going back to the bad old days.
Listening to Trump, he comes across as a deluded old loon in a hurry, to me.
He's like H2G2's "The Lord" (can't find a link - sorry); an old codger wandering around a windswept beach hut dialoguing with himself.
His inauguration speech was full of made up BS, and I've heard him repeat two since then - USA has funded Ukraine since the wart started far more than Europe, and that the Panama Canal is controlled by the Chinese.
The problem we have is that the deranged old fool controls forces of the USA, largely unchecked, and will operate from the base of the BS he's told himself and believed.
Comments
So change the laws that are wrong. Don't cancel the one that gives the very most basic rights.
It is difficult to believe you are so irrational.
As I said if cancelling has no effect why do it? Showmanship I assume, but it sends an awful message. If it does have an effect (which I doubt because of later laws) then it is awful.
I assumed you were referring to this post of yours in your previous reply, but I couldn't believe you were that dumb that you thought that was in anyway a reply to my point
PS I only point out how stupid you are, because you do it to everyone else. Wouldn't do it to anyone else myself normally, but really you often fail to follow a logical flow and often refer to stuff incorrectly or refer to something that is patently wrong.
Oh and as for referring to people overeating here, pot and kettle comes to mind (daily).
There’s a reason that property developers love a Tube station opening in London.
That takes nothing away from women lawyers at all, or Cyclefree, who I respect immensely and I take it as a direct attack on my character to suggest otherwise.
I look forward to getting back to domestic UK politics and Trump’s more international sorties.
https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/19-01-2023/sb265-higher-education-student-statistics/subjects
Compare with post volumes on other contentious topics. Brexit is rarely a major topic of debate on here.
Obviously in the UK it is more about sex and class rather than race but I am willing to bet that black people are still severely underrepresented in certain professions in the States. Happy to be proven wrong.
Feminism made huge changes to culture without any form of affirmative action. Secularism has made huge changes to culture without affirmative action. Large scale public “acceptance” of homosexuality took place without affirmative action.
You are reverse engineering from “we have affirmative action to increase numbers of women and other groups in professions” to “affirmative action is the reason why we have women and other groups in professions” which massively overstates its role in cultural change and massively understates other cultural factors and sacrifices by people to make these changes when there was no such concept as affirmative action.
Yesterday you got yourself in a tangle over climate change and the wording of who has a cervix, both of which were dancing on a pin head. Why don't you just come out with it and say you don't believe in climate change and all this woke nonsense and employers should be able to discriminate as they like.
Personally I think a team that is 90% women would benefit from having more men. I think that a team that is 90% black would benefit from having more people from other backgrounds. I don’t think “affirmative action” is all or nothing and it works in both cases.
Do PB Tories think that it is bad to encourage more male teachers in primary schools because they are severely underrepresented?
A large part of the problem with DEI is assuming that there is a correct level of representation instead of going with the flow of society. If there are more female than male primary school teachers, what's the problem?
Opros Politics 🇺🇦
@OprosUK
·
47m
Westminster Voting Intention:
CON: 25% (=)
REF: 25% (+1)
LAB: 24% (=)
LDM: 12% (=)
GRN: 7% (-1)
via
@Moreincommon_
, 17-20 Jan
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
4m
Kemi Badenoch wisely didn’t go on Southport. And put in a good PMQs performance, probably her best as leader.
The reference to affirmative action is to NOT discriminate. There is NO affirmative action to positively discriminate for minorities.
How is that unreasonable? There is no requirement to say employ jews or blacks. There is a requirement to stop a racist manager from refusing to employ them. There is a requirement to not have separate bathrooms for black and white employees. Again what is wrong with that.
@BBCPolitics
MPs call for more women footballers on birthday cards
(I can't be bothered to even post the link.)
Braverman: Tories and Reform must unite
Former home secretary says collaboration across the Right is ‘the formula to beat Labour’ and urges the Conservatives to copy Trump’s spirit
The Conservative Party needs to “unite” with Reform UK to defeat Labour, Suella Braverman has said.
During a trip to Washington DC for Donald Trump’s inauguration, the former home secretary advised a “coalition” with Nigel Farage’s party to unite the Right.
She praised the president’s brand of “unfiltered conservatism” and said the Tories needed to copy his success at making the “unsayable mainstream”.
Her stance will raise questions about the future direction of the Conservatives at a time when leader Kemi Badenoch is under pressure for losing further ground to Reform. The Tories trail Mr Farage’s party in the latest opinion polls.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/22/suella-braverman-tories-reform-unify-labour-trump/
The many many laws which prohibit racial and sexiual discrimination in hiring etc etc etc all remain firmly in place
Such practices can be self-reinforcing. For example, people are used to seeing men in a particular job, so they continue choosing less able men over more able women. How do you overcome that?
One way is to temporarily choose more women through affirmative action. That action is discriminatory (positive discrimination), but doing so may fix ongoing biases in the employment sector. The idea is that you reduce discrimination overall.
Whether that (a) works and (b) is ethical can be debated.
I thought this was a joke, or satire, but it is true. Some nonentity called Helen Maguire and it is the duty of birthday card vendors to promote equality in sport !!!
"Liberal Democrat MP Helen Maguire tabled a motion in the House of Commons to raise her concerns and call for action.
She told the BBC the industry was "not moving with the times" and should do more to promote gender equality in sport."
Could work but we'd need more politicians to keep up with the workload.
So, what do you do about that? How do you achieve truly meritocratic hiring? Ideas welcome.
One approach is to have HR staff looking out for sources of bias and trying to do something about them. Trump has gotten rid of such posts in the government. Another approach, a more contentious one, is affirmative action.
I will use up my daily image quota for this:
The thing people are missing is that EOs are used by the Federal Government to implement these civil right laws. So you can quote as much legislation as you want - if the Supreme Court prostrate themselves to Trump then that's it.
I cannot speak to the specific legal constructs that have supported it over the years, but I presume Trump has chosen to address it at the core, ie the original EO which refers to “affirmative action”.
Hard to lay the blame for that at the door of the Tories.
(Let the attempts commence here!)
Have we done that NGN caved to Prince Harry.
They really don't want to be questioned in Court, do they?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cd9qqj3gvv1t
Well done, Harry.
Did they cave or did he blink or was it a bit of both. Speculation on the politics slot on GMB was he was made an offer however if he did not accept that offer then if the court decided on a different value, depending what it was, he could be on the hook for alot of court costs.
Also wasn't he supposed to want to bring this to court anyway to shine a light on their murky practises.
Like the Al-Fayed/Neil Hamilton court case it is one I would rather there were two losers.
https://x.com/tagesschau/status/1882044802612519099
You know jolly well that is not Trump's aim. He is just throwing a bone to the idiots that follow him like you who can't think for themselves
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/shock-martin-luther-king-jr-rape-claims-revealed-in-secret-fbi-tapes/O7FR6LW23IYYAQ4T3KCNFFXPF4/
Never make saints of men
“Neo-Nazi Groups Hold Demonstrations In Orlando, FL
ORLANDO, FLORIDA - SEPTEMBER 2: (EDITORS NOTE: Footage contains profanity.) People do the Heil Hitler salute as neo-Nazi groups Blood Tribe, and Goyim Defense League hold a rally on September 2, 2023 in Orlando, Florida. An event touted as the "Red Shirts March" and a show of unity for Neo-Nazis attracted about 100 people to participate. (Footage by Sandi Bachom/Getty Images)”
I am hoping the former. But he has literally ripped up the really good bit and ignored the duff stuff which is idiotic.
Let us talk of happier things, old bean
I'm going off the extended protestations of innocence followed by a settlement. That says guilty and wanting to avoid exposing the rest of teh iceberg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFYjCBG9wjk (NSFW language)
TL:DR Women’s sports will become popular, and the competitors paid as much as their male counterparts, once women spend as much time watching and attending sports fixtures as men do.
It's interesting, but I'd like to see the figures a few months either side, must be some random(ish) variation month to month depending when certain expenditures come due or tax announcements shifting when things are recorded?
ETA: So, I did have a look - https://www.statista.com/statistics/282769/uk-monthly-government-borrowing/ December 23 does look a bit low compared to e.g. most Decembers over the last government. Still not a good look (or headline) though!
If you want to get to a point where we are arguing about grammar schools. let me save you the time: I support them, they were my springboard into a future I almost certainly would not have had otherwise. The issue for me is if you are to have them, how do you ensure they really do identify the right kids at 11 and what do you do with the large majority of kids that will not get into them?
I actually did not get into the grammar school I ended up in despite getting the required 1.1.1 and despite being the pupil who lived closest to the school. It was around a minute from my front door. At the time my Dad mended lifts and my Mum was a bar maid. The kid that lived second closest did not get in either. His Dad drove a taxi and his Mum did not work. We both got places in the end because two kids who lived further away dropped out and went private.
CON 25% (-)
REF 25% (+1)
LAB 24% (-)
LD 12% (-)
GRN 7% (-1)
Via
@Moreincommon
SKS Fans please explain why SKS Tories are in 3rd place!
It reminds people of the bullet they dodged in 2017.
As far as I can see from the actual data there doesn't appear to be any significant knife related uptick in homicide rates. The proportion of knife related homicides seems to follow the same trend of homicides overall. Sharp instruments make up about 40% of homicides quite consistently. So it's not the availability of knives that is the real issue but the ebb and flow of the homicide rate, which perhaps broadly tracks social and economic factors like growth, employment, etc.
Oh and kitchen knives are about 14 x more likely to be used in a homicide than a "zombie" knife.
https://x.com/steven_swinford/status/1881677109749301432
Labour is inserting growth into every press release
In this one it is announcing plans to digitise the registration of deaths - a genuinely positive step that will make things easier for people during one of the hardest times of their lives
But is the current system of going to the registry office really 'getting in the way of growth', as the government puts it?
With a top five of Duckett, Salt, Buttler, Brook, and Livingstone then England should easily score 250.
https://ifs.org.uk/inequality/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Intergenerational-mobility-in-the-UK.pdf
Also, I note that the LD lead over Green has GROWN BY 25%!!!!
I thought you were a serious poster!!
I’ve been her critic at PMQs. But on this one she stayed on a topic and Starmer didn’t look ready to discuss the substance and had to fall back on deflection tactics.
I suspect he’d prepared for Southport and wasn’t expecting education policy.
We have a whole lot of good stuff and a whole lot of bad stuff. The bad stuff followed the good stuff. So the logical thing to do is get rid of the good stuff and keep the bad stuff. Yes I can see that is logical in an idiots mind.
And the arguments keep changing. Others have said people are still protected by later laws so it is ok. Yet these are the ones you want to get rid of. And when you get rid of them you are going to have to reintroduce a version of LBJ's EO aren't you or are we going back to the bad old days.
Nonsense on stilts.
He's like H2G2's "The Lord" (can't find a link - sorry); an old codger wandering around a windswept beach hut dialoguing with himself.
His inauguration speech was full of made up BS, and I've heard him repeat two since then - USA has funded Ukraine since the wart started far more than Europe, and that the Panama Canal is controlled by the Chinese.
The problem we have is that the deranged old fool controls forces of the USA, largely unchecked, and will operate from the base of the BS he's told himself and believed.
https://www.factcheck.org/2025/01/factchecking-trumps-inaugural-address/
Con 197
Ref 159
Lab 139
LD 70
SNP 43
Grn 5
PC 4
https://x.com/LeftieStats/status/1882033416511918521