03. What the law says

The Race Relations Act 1976 protects you against racial discrimination and harassment. It also gives you the right to challenge unfair treatment in the courts or at an employment tribunal.

The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 extends the original Act. It makes racial discrimination by organisations that enforce the law, such as the police, unlawful. This law also says that government departments and other public organisations must have policies to promote racial equality.

Although many cases of discrimination are by white people against black and Asian people, for example, white people, too, may complain of discrimination.

Direct and indirect discrimination
The law on equality talks about two types of discrimination:

• Direct discrimination is when you are treated less favourably because of your race.
• Indirect discrimination is where there are rules or conditions which apply to everyone, but which affect one group of people more than others, where there is no good reason for the rule. For example, a company rule that employees must not wear headgear could exclude Sikh men who wear a turban.

Sometimes, what seems like discrimination may be allowed. For example, it could be legal to say that someone providing welfare services especially for the Bangladeshi community should also be Bangladeshi.

Victimisation
If you want to complain about being discriminated against (or if you are helping a colleague who is complaining), you may fear that your employer may, for example, treat you less favourably for this reason. If they do, this is called victimisation, and it is unlawful in the same way discrimination is.

There are four main areas covered in this leaflet where discrimination may happen:

• At work;
• When you are renting or buying somewhere to live;
• At school or college; and
• When you are buying or using goods or services.