Now saying ‘playing the race card’ is racist

THE suggestion an employee is ‘playing the race card’ if they complain about treatment in the workplace is itself racist, a tribunal has ruled.

By implying an ethnic minority colleague is wrong to raise an issue is discrimination because it would be ‘inconceivable’ that a white person would receive the same response, the judgment said.

The employment ruling was issued after British Army musician Dwight Pile-Grey, 53, sued the Ministry of Defence for race discrimination, harassment and victimisation. The lance sergeant, a black Rastafarian horn player in the Grenadier Guards, had been denied entry to his barracks while in civilian clothing.

A guard did not believe he was a soldier at first and Lance Sgt Pile - Grey complained he wouldn’t have been treated that way were he white.

Both the guard and Lance Sgt Pile- Grey’s superior officer accused him of ‘playing the race card’ and claimed he had turned it ‘into a racial thing’.

But the employment panel, chaired by Paul Singh, said the comment was ‘irrefutably connected with race’.

The judge concluded: ‘It was the tribunal’s finding that a hypothetical white comparator would not have been treated in the same manner. The nature of the comment is irrefutably connected with race and as such, race must have been the reason for the treatment.’

Lance Sgt Pile-Grey’s victory in the tribunal was reported last December and the full judgment has now been published. The hearing in Central

‘Denied entry to barracks’

London was told he joined the Army in 2005 and was based at Wellington Barracks near Buckingham Palace at the time of the incident in July 2021.

He had participated in Changing the Guard, Trooping the Colour and Remembrance Day services at the Cenotaph.

The incident led to him being investigated for insubordination and a disciplinary finding being added to his record. He took the MoD to the tribunal in June 2023, winning his case.

He has since left the Army and teaches music.