disability discrimination

 

  Hello everyone,

Welcome back to my blog my self parmod sharma and in this blog we will discuss about a very important topic.

If your education provider is treating you unfairly because of disability, it may be discrimination.

This could be that your college or university treats you differently and worse than others because of your impairment or condition. Or it might be that you're treated the same but that puts you at a disadvantage because of disability.

What is disability discrimination?

Disability discrimination is when you are treated less well or put at a disadvantage for a reason that relates to your disability in one of the situations covered by the Equality Act.

The treatment could be a one-off action, the application of a rule or policy or the existence of physical or communication barriers which make accessing something difficult or impossible.

The discrimination does not have to be intentional to be unlawful.

In the Equality Act a disability means a physical or a mental condition which has a substantial and long-term impact on your ability to do normal day to day activities.

You are covered by the Equality Act if you have a progressive condition like HIV, cancer or multiple sclerosis, even if you are currently able to carry out normal day to day activities. You are protected as soon as you are diagnosed with a progressive condition. 

You are also covered by the Equality Act if you had a disability in the past. For example, if you had a mental health condition in the past which lasted for over 12 months, but you have now recovered, you are still protected from discrimination because of that disability.

Different types of disability discrimination

There are six main types of disability discrimination:

direct discrimination

indirect discrimination

failure to make reasonable adjustments

discrimination arising from disability

harassment

victimisation

Direct discrimination

This happens when someone treats you worse than another person in a similar situation because of disability. For example:

during an interview, a job applicant tells the potential employer that he has multiple sclerosis. The employer decides not to appoint him even though he’s the best candidate they have interviewed, because they assume he will need a lot of time off sick

Indirect discrimination

Indirect discrimination happens when an organisation has a particular policy or way of working that has a worse impact on disabled people compared to people who are not disabled. 

Indirect disability discrimination is unlawful unless the organisation or employer is able to show that there is a good reason for the policy and it is proportionate. 

This is known as objective justification. For example:

a job advert states that all applicants must have a driving licence. This puts some disabled people at a disadvantage because they may not have a licence because, for example, they have epilepsy. If the advert is for a bus driver job, the requirement will be justified. If it is for a teacher to work across two schools, it will be more difficult to justify

Harassment

Harassment occurs when someone treats you in a way that makes you feel humiliated, offended or degraded. for example:

a disabled woman is regularly sworn at and called names by colleagues at work because of her disability

Harassment can never be justified. However, if an organisation or employer can show it did everything it could to prevent people who work for it from behaving like that, you will not be able to make a claim for harassment against it, although you could make a claim against the harasser.

Victimisation

This is when you are treated badly because you have made a complaint of discrimination under the Equality Act. It can also occur if you are supporting someone who has made a complaint of discrimination. For example:

an employee has made a complaint of disability discrimination. The employer threatens to sack them unless they withdraw the complaint

an employer threatens to sack a member of staff because he thinks she intends to support a colleague’s disability discrimination claim

Circumstances when being treated differently due to disability is lawful

Non-disabled people

It is always lawful to treat a disabled person more favourably than a non-disabled person.

Other disabled people

Treating a disabled person with a particular disability more favourably than other disabled people may be lawful in some circumstances. For example: 

where having a particular disability is essential for the job (this is called an occupational requirement). For example, an organisation supporting deaf people might require that an employee whose role is providing counselling to British Sign Language users is a deaf BSL user

where an organisation is taking positive action to encourage or develop people with a particular disability. For example, an employer is aware that people with learning disabilities have a particularly high rate of unemployment, so sets up a mentoring and job-shadowing programme for people with learning disabilities to help them prepare to apply for jobs

Occupational requirement and positive action are clarified in our statutory code of practice on employment.

What else does the Equality Act protect against?

Being asked health questions designed to screen out disabled job applicants. 

The Equality Act says that employers cannot ask job applicants about their health or disability until they have been offered a job, except in specific circumstances where the information is necessary for the application process or a requirement of the job. For example:

a job applicant fills in an application form which asks people to state whether they are taking any medication. Unless there is a good reason why the employer needs to know this information, then the question should not be asked

         Thank you