Re: Phil and the laundry/spoiler 9th June

Siderius Nuncius wrote:
"Plusnet" <not@xxxxxxxx> wrote
dontusethisaddress@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...

What I can't understand is how the Church gets exemption from equal-opps
legislation on sex discrimination. I also fail to understand why "faith"
schools are allowed or even encouraged to select on the basis of
religious beliefs, whereas when these same young people move on to
employment, it's illegal in most jobs to discriminate on the grounds of
religion.


I assume that when the legislation was being drafted, the draftees
decided to avoid getting into a barney with organised religion because
it has lots of friends who would try to scupper the whole bill.

Possibly. But Grammar Schools are allowed to refuse you because you're not bright, and Public Schools because you're not rich. I do wonder whether allowing this while outlawing schools who refuse pupils because they don't subscribe to a particular ethical system might be legally rather tricky.

But workplaces are perfectly free to discriminate on grounds of ability, and all sorts of things in life are not available unless you pay for them. The point I'm trying to make is that modern employment legislation is now completely at odds with what happens in the schools that are supposed to be preparing young people for the world of work. If equal opps legislation can be framed to cover all sorts of businesses and workplaces, it could easily cover schools too.

I'm sure there's a lot in what others are saying here - that it simply wouldn't have been possible to get the legislation through without giving the churches and their schools exemption. But this seems wrong to me - what's regarded as fair and just in the wider community should apply in schools too.


--
Marjorie

To reply, replace dontusethisaddress with marje
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