By: Jill Foster
Published: Jun 13, 2026
The brutal stabbing of 18-year-old student Henry Nowak in Southampton has triggered a national conversation about âtwo-tieredâ policing, racism and accountability. But while this new debate is noisy and heated, it is quietly being informed by a single word â âequityâ.
Apparently unobjectionable, seemingly even virtuous, the term âequityâ has spread through the official lexicon of the state and its services over the past decade, marking a subtle but dramatic shift in how those services treat different groups within the public at large. As it has done so, it has frequently come to replace the word âequalityâ in policies, training and public statements.
The distinction between the two may sound semantic. But for policy-makers, legal experts and campaigners, the difference is profound. âMost people probably use âequityâ and âequalityâ interchangeably and think they are roughly the same,â says Simon Fanshawe, managing director of consultancy Diversity By Design.
In fact, he explains, they reflect profoundly different outlooks, with âequalityâ focussing on âequality of opportunityâ while âequityâ aims to engineer âequality of outcomeâ â despite the distortions or discriminations that might be required to orchestrate it.
ââEqualityâ is nuanced and about the individualâs situation,â says Fanshawe. It is not about treating everyone the same â a notion he considers âludicrousâ: âYou donât treat someone in a wheelchair the same as someone who is walking. What you do is provide people with the platform that gives them an equality of opportunity and the fairness to live well.â
Crucially though, he adds, âYou donât do that on [an aggregate] basis, you have to look at the individual.â But âequityâ results in the notion âthat any disparity in the data between âblackâ and âwhiteâ or between âmenâ and âwomenâ must be racism or sexismâ.
Positive discrimination
For Baroness Kishwer Falkner, former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, this conceptual leap from equality to equity is a disturbing development. She points out that in the UK it is âequalityâ that is the law, not equity.
âThe law emphasises equality of opportunity,â she says. âFor example, to accommodate a disabled student, we place a ramp up into a building so they can take their exam. No one is saying the person needing the ramp would be marked to a lower or higher standard because theyâre in a wheelchair, but weâve enabled the person to get there in the first place so theyâre equally able to take it.
âYet when you read guidance such as the Hampshire Police guidance [which was involved in the Henry Nowak case], it talked of making arrest and charge rates âequalâ between groups. That is simply wrong.â
[ University student Henry Nowak was killed on his way home from a night out in Southampton ]
Far from a minor semantic difference, then, the swapping of âequalityâ for âequityâ actually represents a significant change in approach â and one potentially at variance with the law. As such, the public might have expected significant consultation and debate before its adoption by major state and private-sector services.
Instead, Telegraph analysis of guidance documents shows it has spread widely but quietly, from policing to the NHS, higher education to the wider workplace.
âTo me, diversity is a very good thing,â says Falkner. âBut what started happening was that organisations tended to move to âvirtue-signallingâ so that they were âinclusiveâ of everyone and âequityâ was an element of that. Organisations which add âequityâ to their policies are âgold-platingâ them unnecessarily.
âThe really worrying part is that theyâre doing it quietly because they wish to appear âprogressiveâ. Theyâre following trends rather than sticking to our own well-developed laws.â
[ Baroness Falkner: âOrganisations add âequityâ to their policies to seem progressiveâ ]
Perhaps unsurprisingly, equity policies are now particularly embedded in UK universities. Research last year by the Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF) found that at least 20 universities across the country now understand the âEâ in the acronym DEI (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion) to refer not to âequalityâ but âequityâ. These include Bristol, Leeds, Sheffield, and the London School of Economics.
âThe term âequityâ is increasingly being used in universities and DEI departments to ensure equal outcomes for under-represented groups â ie. giving them a leg up where thatâs necessary to achieve equality of outcome,â says Dr Edward Skidelsky, director of CAF.
âMany have policies which include positive discrimination or affirmative action, and thatâs very concerning because one should aim to treat all students and all academics equally and not give them special consideration because they belong to some group. Thatâs unjust.
âStudents and academics should be treated on their own merits. Itâs deeply patronising and insulting to try to favour people because of their background.â
Skidelsky says he believes that this kind of policy actually âencourages racism and sexismâ.
âItâs very divisive,â he says. âBecause if, for instance, you have a black professor, people say things like âYou know why he got the job, donât you?â and that could be completely unfair, but the suspicion is already planted in peopleâs minds if you have an âequityâ policy in place.â
Betrayed values
In healthcare, several NHS trusts â including East London, Bristol and Weston and UCL â have explicitly adopted âequityâ either alongside or in place of âequalityâ in their DEI strategies. Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust describes itself as on a âjourney to become a pro-equity organisationâ â but this has come under intense scrutiny and criticism this year.
In February, during a public inquiry into the brutal murders of three people in Nottingham, it emerged that professionals at the Trust decided not to detain the killer Valdo Calocane after considering research that noted the over-representation of young black men detained after being sectioned on mental health grounds.
[ Critics have claimed that the treatment of Valdo Calocane, who murdered three people in Nottingham, was influenced by concerns over the number of black men being sectioned ]
A search on the gov.uk website today shows there are 354 results for âhealth equityâ and just 71 for âhealth equalityâ, with an acceleration of publications mentioning the term through the 2010s. In 2010, for example, the Coalition government presented its vision for the health service. It was entitled âEquity and Excellence: Liberating the NHSâ. Seven years later, Public Health England, the since-scrapped quango which, by its own definition, existed âto⌠reduce health inequalitiesâ, published instead a âHealth Equity Reportâ. It was subtitled âFocus on ethnicityâ.
âWhen the NHS determines that it will favour one group of people over another, it betrays the values on which it is based,â says Gareth Lyon, head of health and social care at think tank Policy Exchange. âAny attempt to replace âequalityâ with âequityâ means introducing a subjective value judgment about perceived challenges or history which has no place in a universal public service.
âNHS trusts should judge each individual case on the basis of clinical need. Polling for Policy Exchange shows that the public want the NHS to focus on improving GP access and treatment for life-threatening conditions â the health service should be prioritising these areas and avoiding this kind of damaging, distracting mission creep.â
In the world of employment, large companies, too, began to adopt the new word, though the shifts tended to be gradual and without fanfare. HR expert Tanya de Grunwald, host of the This Isnât Working podcast, noticed the change arriving in employersâ language with âno challengeâ.
âWe were still calling it D&I [Diversity and Inclusion] in 2018 and the E came later,â she says. âInitially it stood for âequalityâ, but we were quickly told âequityâ was superior as people didnât come from âequalâ starting points in life.
âSuddenly, graphics of people peeping over walls [to illustrate that tall people could see easily while short people would struggle] or running races from different start lines were everywhere and they were so simple that a child could understand why someone might need a box to stand on, or a longer ladder, or a start from the same place as other runners.â
[ An example of the cartoons used by pro-equity campaigners to support their cause ]
Equality law specialist Audrey Ludwig, who carries out training for firms, also says this trend for employers and organisations to adopt âequityâ alongside or instead of âequalityâ began in the late 2010s. âIt was influenced by North American DEI frameworks and has been problematic,â she says.
The beginning of that decade, 2010, was the date of the Equality â not Equity â Act, which replaced multiple anti-discrimination laws with a single, streamlined Act to help protect individuals against discrimination based on nine protected characteristics. They included race, sex, age and disability.
It marked a major evolution from landmark laws like the Race Relations Act 1968 or the Equal Pay Act 1970, says Fanshawe, which aimed to address inequality brought about by âdisadvantage or discriminationâ demonstrable by fundamental facts: âThey were data driven.â
Ironically, some critics say it was the Equality Act which ushered in the era of equity. âUnfortunately, the Equality Act does licence universities and other institutions to treat applicants favourably on the grounds of race, sex and so forth,â says Dr Skidelsky. âI think it was a disastrous piece of legislation.â
Perverse outcomes
The âequityâ era of the late 2010s marked a new ideological direction after decades of equality campaigning the need for which few contested. The murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the subsequent MacPherson report emphasised the need for more training to tackle âinstitutional racismâ and was broadly welcomed by officers and the public alike.
But during the 2010s, equity-focused approaches began to appear in DEI training, initially in America. Those influencing this subtle change include individuals such as US historian and professor Ibram X Kendi, author of the 2019 book How To Be An Antiracist and Robin DiAngelo, who wrote White Fragility in 2018 and co-wrote Is Everyone Really Equal?.
In the UK, organisations such as Stonewall began encouraging the idea of âequitable outcomesâ for LGBTQ+ people in the early 2020s, even announcing a new strategy based on three pillars: Freedom, Equity and Potential. But it was following George Floydâs death in 2020, and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, that the drive for equity accelerated, with UK institutions and bodies increasingly using it in place of âequalityâ in action plans to address disparities.
[ The Black Lives Matter protests were a turning point for British institutions in the battle of âequalityâ vs âequityâ ]
âI did wonder why it was happening and saw an element of American DEI practice coming over the water,â says Baroness Falkner. âItâs been part of the overall progressive bent in the last 15 or 20 years where corporate values â even for public bodies â have become much more significant and are seen as the done thing.â
Even if such public bodies were trying to do the right thing, however, perverse and discriminatory outcomes soon emerged.
âOne such example,â says Ludwig, âis a case in 2019 when a white, heterosexual male â Matthew Furlong â was unsuccessful in applying for the role of police constable for Cheshire Police.
âMr Furlong brought claims of direct discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, race and sex against Cheshire Police. While the Force argued that it had lawfully applied the âpositive action in recruitment measuresâ under the Equality Act to increase diversity, the Employment Tribunal found Cheshire Police had directly discriminated against Mr Furlong by deeming all candidates equal at interview stage but then offering a role to those with a protected characteristic in preference to him.
âWhat was a well-intentioned policy to increase much-needed workforce diversity led to unlawful discrimination in recruitment. When organisations substitute equity for equality, they risk moving away from universal rights towards discretionary preferences, based sometimes on no more than fashionable views.â
The equity-equality switch has become hot politics. This week, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch underlined her stance as one of the fiercest opponents of ideological âequityâ, under which outcomes must be engineered to be equal for everyone.
[ Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has pledged to scrap the âequality dutyâ ]
âWe need to make sure that we do not create a society where people retreat into groups,â she said. âWeâre seeing separatism in our country occur because different people are being treated differently. And when you have that, there will be a backlash.â
That backlash, as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer can attest, is already underway. But Baroness Falkner insists the remedy is straightforward. âMy answer to private and public organisations would be: stick to the law first and then worry about inclusion and equity and what your outcomes look like.â
David Rose, director of policy and research at the Free Speech Union, says the correction is already underway: âUnfortunately analogous ideas, derived from Critical Race Theory, have come to be applied in other public spheres.
âIf the death of Henry Nowak can be said to have any positive aspect, it is that it may lead to a long overdue re-evaluation of this ideology and its pernicious effects.â
[ Via: https://archive.today/TksSW ]
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There is no such thing as "positive" discrimination. When you discriminate for someone, you're discriminating against someone else. So-called "positive" discriminate for black people or women is just discrimination against white, Asian, etc, people or men.
Calling it "affirmative action" or "positive discrimination" doesn't change what you're doing. Which is just racism and sexism.













