Racial Discrimination – Where There’s Smoke…

Overt acts of racial discrimination are thankfully not as plentiful as in the day of, for example, the Jim Crow South in the United States. This of course does not mean that racism does not exist. It simply takes more subtle forms.

As a result, seldom when reviewing a major employment decision such as an employer’s failure to hire or promote or its decision to dismiss an employee will a human rights tribunal be faced with direct evidence of racism as a reason for the employer’s action. In recently overturning the decision of a human rights tribunal in Ontario, the Ontario Divisional Court has reminded us that race need only be a factor in a workplace decision to dismiss an employee, in order to taint the decision in its entirety. Motive to discriminate is irrelevant.