(Reuters) – A commission of inquiry into racism in Britain will recommend unconscious bias training be dropped in favour of more “evidence-based approaches” to fight inequality in workplaces, the Financial Times reported.
The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities will argue that racial disparities cannot be attributed solely to racism, the newspaper added.
The 264-page report from the Commission will be released on Wednesday. The Commission was formed last July after the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement to examine racism and inequality.
“We found that most of the disparities we examined, which some attribute to racial discrimination, often do not have their origins in racism,” the FT reported, citing the report.
But the findings will acknowledge that “overt and outright” racism is still persistent throughout the country – especially online.
The commission’s call for organisations to move away from funding unconscious bias training, a tool that aims to help staff understand and address prejudices within the workplace, follows the government’s decision https://www.bbc.com/news/education-55309923 to scrap the training within the British civil service in December 2020.
The Commission was not immediately available to comment on its findings after office hours.
(Reporting by Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru; Editing by Stephen Coates)
