One of Britain’s largest fire services requires white men to score higher on a recruitment test than women or minorities.
West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service (WMFRS) requires white men to score 70% on verbal and numerical tests, while women and black, Asian, or other ethnic men need to score only 60%. The change was implemented in September 2017, as part of an effort to increase the diversity of firefighters, but is only now being discovered by those outside the department.
Metro UK reports that a “senior source” within the department says the program costs £100,000 a year, including £2,500 a month for Facebook ads targeting only women to “minimize white men applying.”
This same source told the paper that WMFRS is the first brigade in the United Kingdom to make the change, which “directly discriminates against white men.”
“This approach was intentionally adopted to directly manipulate the diversity figures to meet the targets,” the source said. “This approach to recruitment is appalling. Not only are they discriminating against large parts of my community, but they are also using huge amounts of public money to do so. There is such a negative culture within management who want to achieve their own agendas at all costs.”- READ MORE