The Mayor of West Yorkshire doubled down.
On Friday, National Review published my article “U.K. Police: Whites Need Not Apply” about the West Yorkshire Police maintaining different hiring processes based on race. “Due to our police service being under-represented by people from an ethnic minority background, we accept applications all year round from these under-represented groups,” reads a West Yorkshire Police website, which continues that “applications from people from an ethnic minority background are processed through to the interview stage, but then held until recruitment is opened for everyone.” In a section about its open positions, the West Yorkshire Police states that “we are currently accepting applications . . . from people from our under-represented groups,” but adds that “if you are not from one of these groups please keep checking this page for future recruitment opportunities.”
In the days after the Telegraph reported on this blatant racial discrimination, you might have expected that the police force would quickly develop a cover-up operation to scrub its website. But that hasn’t happened. Instead, the Mayor of West Yorkshire doubled down, writing the following on social media: “Our police force should reflect the people it serves. That’s how it builds trust, understands communities and prevents crime. [The West Yorkshire Police] doesn’t discriminate in its recruitment, and we support its efforts to diversify the force.”
Likewise, the West Yorkshire Police issued a statement defending its “positive action” recruitment:
“In West Yorkshire Police, we are committed to improving equality, diversity, and inclusion within the organisation, and strive to be more representative of the communities we serve.
Our Diversity, Equality and Inclusion team supports and consults with those with different protected characteristics such as sex, disability, sexual orientation, and race to ensure their views can influence and improve the service the force delivers. They also work to improve the wellbeing of everybody in the organisation and inclusivity overall.
The most recent census found that 23 per cent of people in West Yorkshire identified as being from an ethnic minority background. Our current police officer representation from ethnic minority backgrounds is around nine per cent. To address this under-representation, we use Positive Action under the Equality Act 2010. Our use of this was recently reviewed by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services in an Activism and Impartiality inspection and no issues were identified.
Positive Action allows people from under-represented groups who express an interest in joining the force to complete an application, which is then held on file until a recruitment window is opened. No interviews are held until the window is officially opened to all candidates. Enabling people from under-represented groups to apply early does not give them an advantage in the application process, it simply provides us with more opportunity to attract talent from this pool of applicants.”
It is challenging to detect any logic in the statement. The left desperately insists that “positive” discrimination is somehow not actually discrimination, which leads to senseless assertions like “enabling people from under-represented groups to apply early does not give them an advantage in the application process, it simply provides us with more opportunity to attract talent from this pool of applicants.” If there’s no “advantage” in a special application process for minorities, then what’s the point of having it? But if you have “more opportunity” with that “pool of applicants,” isn’t that an “advantage” for them? Somehow, we’re supposed to simultaneously believe that DEI efforts are necessary in hiring to increase racial diversity but also that such DEI efforts do not change the hiring process and have no effect on diversity.
Despite the nonsensical claims, the police force’s response is informative because of everything that wasn’t said. The police conveniently neglect mentioning the Telegraph’s reports of an internal ranking system wherein “black and far east Asian” applicants are considered “gold” candidates, while “White others” are labelled “bronze.” Additionally, the Telegraph claimed that ethnic applicants received coaching through the hiring process. So it seems that the special treatment for minorities was not simply providing a greater time frame for submitting applications — and evidently, the police would prefer not to talk about that.