A prominent KC has said that regional accents and social deprivation should be made legally protected characteristics because of the extent of prejudice in the legal profession.
Mary Prior KC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, told the Doesn’t Sound Right podcast this week that she was mocked over her accent as soon as she started practising at the bar in the early 1990s. She was brought up in Stoke-on-Trent.
Adding that the prejudice continues more than 30 years later, she said that to overcome the incessant banter she experienced she had modified her accent “to be accepted”.
The bias is so extreme that Prior said she had spoken to law students and graduates who had been told they would not succeed in their careers until they had shed their regional accents and taken elocution lessons. Barristers should not feel the need to put on “received pronunciation”, she said.
The legal profession, she said, should reflect the community it serves in all its diversity, being inclusive of women, people from ethnic minority backgrounds and those with neurodiversity or physical disabilities. “We have to add in those with accents” and those who are from an “underprivileged background”, Prior said. “Social deprivation should be a protected characteristic.”
Research by Nottingham Trent University has shown that certain accents are judged in negative ways. Natalie Braber, professor of linguistics at Nottingham Trent University, said the idea of accents being a protected characteristic would “acknowledge that certain people may be at a disadvantage because of the way they speak”.
Kate Palmer, employment services director at Peninsula, confirmed there was currently no legal basis to bring a claim of accent discrimination. However, she added: “Some accents relate to race, which is already a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, meaning if an individual is treated less fairly on the basis of their national origin they could raise a claim for race discrimination.
Employers should never make assumptions about a person’s capabilities based on their accent” – Kate Palmer, Peninsula
“In the UK we have many regional accents, some of which are related to race, for example, Scottish, Irish, Welsh and English. If a person with, for example, a Birmingham accent worked for a non-English company they could potentially claim race discrimination. Likewise, a person from Wales, Scotland or Ireland who works in England could argue accent discrimination if they were treated unfavourably as a result.”
With more than 50 British accents across the country it was likely that many people would have come across comments on their accent at some point in their life and may have felt disadvantaged because of it. But this did not amount to discrimination in the workplace in itself, said Palmer.
She said: “Certainly, if a person is put at a detriment due to their accent, for example, not being hired for a job or being overlooked for promotion due to their accent, it could be argued that this is discriminatory or unfair treatment. But there is currently no legal basis to bring a claim of accent discrimination, so it would be hard for them to make a claim. This was evidenced when an employment tribunal ruled that a bus driver who was mocked for his Liverpudlian accent was not discriminated against as there was no ‘country divide’ between those involved.
Palmer acknowledged that in the UK, it was not uncommon for someone to link an individual’s accent to their intelligence and abilities; this could lead to employers making employment decisions based on unconscious bias.
She added: “Employers should never make assumptions about a person’s capabilities based on their accent, or any other factors which are not related to their experience, qualifications, knowledge and skills.”
The Doesn’t Sound Right podcast was launched this week by law students Matthew Fedigan and Denise van der Merwe and sponsored by Walker Morris, a law firm in Leeds.
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