This seems troubling: Telling someone with a foreign accent you can’t understand them could be racial discrimination
Perhaps this legal ruling is related to a specific workplace situation – but that is not clear and implies that in the UK, asking a person with a strong accent for clarification of what they said or meant is potentially race discrimination and punishable under the law.
Is it thus better to misunderstand what they are saying because you cannot ask for clarification?
Second, could this be extended to someone who speaks a different language than you? If you cannot understand what they are saying (at all because you do not also speak that language), is that also a form of racial discrimination, using the judge’s logic?
Third, would this then prohibit an employer from having a language skill requirement? Such as, “Must be able to read, write and speak English at the B1 level”. Or, does this imply a language skill requirement to speak the local language at the B1 or above level is racially discriminatory?
We are not given enough information in this story to understand what is going on – is it a case of “the culture of perpetual outrage” that seeks to find an oppressor and an oppressed in every situation? Or is this a cover for something else going on in the workplace?