The paper’s answer: both are partly true, and the two do not conflict.
Why DEI is still needed
Discrimination can be measured. In UK field experiments, ethnic minority applicants with identical CVs had to send 60% more job applications to get a positive response. Discrimination against Black British and Pakistani applicants has not fallen since the late 1960s. Disabled people’s employment rate is 29.5 points below that of non-disabled people, and the gap is widening.
Where DEI has gone too far
- Legally. The RAF, Cheshire Police and Thames Valley Police were found to have discriminated unlawfully against white men by putting diversity targets ahead of fair selection.
- In practice. The government’s own expert panel found little evidence that common measures such as diversity training work, and only a quarter of employers look at data before planning diversity work.
- In focus. White working-class boys have the worst education outcomes of any large group in England, and DEI work has largely overlooked them.
Are white British men penalised as a group?
No. White British men are well represented in senior jobs, and white British is not the highest-earning ethnic group. The disadvantage the paper finds is about class: it falls on white working-class boys, not on white British men in general.
The paper’s conclusion
Keep anti-discrimination law and the measurement, drop the measures that don’t work, and make economic disadvantage a priority. That is close to what the government’s own panel recommended in 2024.
Limits
The pay data dates from 2022 and carries sample-size warnings, and some sources have a known slant. The paper sets these out in full.