All 25-year-old Matthew Furlong wanted to do was “follow in his father’s footsteps” and become a police officer.
Two years ago, he applied to join the Cheshire Police Department during a diversity drive. The department was hoping to hire more LGBTQ officers. You know, because diversity is a good thing!
There was just one teensy tiny problem.
Furlong is not L, G, B, T, or Q. He’s straight. 100% hetero. No homo. Got that?
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Despite this, he applied for the job anyway and when he didn’t get it, he sued for discrimination. Now, he just won his case in court.
The Telegraph reports:
Cheshire Constabulary, in which Mr Furlong’s father is a serving detective inspector, was found guilty of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, race and sex following an employment tribunal earlier this year.
A settlement has now been reached and Mr Furlong will be joining as a student officer in September, his lawyers said.
Speaking to reporters after his court victory this week, Furlong said: “My dad has served more than 20 years with Cheshire Police and I had always wanted to follow in his footsteps, ever since school. Not just anywhere but in the place I grew up.”
Furlong added that if he had “lied on my interview form and said I was bisexual” then he knows he would have gotten the job and that the whole thing has “completely shattered my confidence in the police force recruitment system.”
Deputy Chief Constable Julie Cooke said the diversity drive was created “with the best of intentions” and was never intended to be discriminatory against straight people.
Furlong, she added, will be welcomed as a new member of the Cheshire Police with no hard feelings.
“We accept the findings of the tribunal,” she said, “and have looked very carefully at our entire recruitment practice.”
But chances are this means there will be no more LGBTQ diversity drives.
Jennifer Ainscough, an employment lawyer, tells the Telegraph: “Positive action is an incredibly important tool to aid diversity in the workforce but this case is a reminder that it must be applied correctly to ensure that employers still recruit candidates based on merit above all else.”
Related: Straight white rapper releases song about how oppressed he is on the eve of Pride month
iamru2
Correct, diversity is a good thing, discriminating against someone is not a good thing. Glad he won his case. Oh and he is smoking hot.
Cam
How surprising, the same account that cheers and defends anti-LGBTQ bigots or tries to always attack black people is first to applaud the ending of a diversity drive.
At least you’re consistent.
truthseeker
@Cam
Oh look, DCguy is using his secondary account. That’s 2 accounts (that we know of) for 1 person
Cam
@truthseeker
Translation: Attempting to deflect the topic because I called out your sockpuppet account for continually mentioning race.
truthseeker
@Cam (DCguy)
Like I said before, you’re a terrible translator. Plus I only have 1 account on here, unlike you.
Secondly, I didn’t deflect from the topic. If you see my comment at the bottom of the page, which no one addressed because they know I’m right in everything I wrote in that comment, you’ll see I addressed the issue.
Why are you allowed multiple accounts on here anyways?
Wicked Dickie
Sounds about…you what, never mind.
Taiyoken
I agree. If you can’t not-hire someone for being gay, then you can’t not-hire someone for being straight.
MacAdvisor
I am actually surprised the application form inquires into one’s sexual identity. How is that a valid question. Yes, one can increase diversity by going to something like an LGBTQ event with the rather reasonable expectation one will get some gay applicants, but there are straight people at such events. One might get straight applicants, too. To bluntly ask, however, seems really, really intrusive.
Jack Meoff
While I am glad he won his case because anti-discrimination works both ways I also hope the experience wasn’t lost on him and that it gave him a better understanding of the kind of discrimination gay people face every day.
Loki
I think you’re misrepresenting Furlong a bit here. This “diversity drive” was more about race than sexual orientation.
“Cheshire Police launched an ‘action plan’ to recruit more black, Asian and female officers.
This followed a government review which had revealed the force had zero black officers, only five from Asian backgrounds and four of mixed race, with more than 1,400 white officers.”
Furlong says he could’ve lied and said he was bisexual and he would’ve gotten the job. He couldn’t have lied and said he was mixed-race or a woman, now could he?
Kangol2
Sure he could have lied and said he was mixed-race. Had they then conducted a DNA test, he would have had to hope that somewhere in his lineage, he had African, Arab/Middle Eastern, etc. ancestry. It’s not inconceivable, though; there were enough Africans in Britain during Queen Elizabeth I’s realm that she suffered a bit of a freak-out over it. Twice. And Shakespeare very like saw Black and Arab people in London as he was writing and staging his plays.
JACVing
Well then every lgbtq person should sue when not getting a job in a police department or the military and see how that goes.
sydboy007
Diversity is not a good thing if you exclude more capable applicants.
diversity these days might as well be a sign out front saying white heterosexual men not allowed.
dmanhart
Yes! I would add that not hiring blind pilots isn’t being against the disabled.
russdog
“Diverse” doesn’t mean less capable. You’re letting your bias show.
PinkoOfTheGange
If he would of lied, and then been hired based on the lie, he would of gotten fired.
Now if I wonder if he had just applied, and not run this ruse, would he of been hired? If not then I would never trust him as a copper.
Brian
How did this even make it to court? There was really nobody associated with this case who understood that sexual identity discrimination includes the identity of heterosexual?
IWantAFullBeard
huh? What you just wrote makes no sense. “There was really nobody associated with this case…” There is no case without a lawsuit.
Brian
Do all lawsuits end up with a court date? No. What I wrote makes perfect sense. This should have been settled the moment the lawsuit was filed, obviously they were never going to win.
IWantAFullBeard
I’m always curious about people who engage in lawsuits. 1) It’s emotionally draining to sue someone. It takes a long time. 2) It’s incredibly expensive to sue someone. And in many states if you sue someone and lose, you have to pay their attorney fees. In all states you can be countersued for legal fees. And 3) Even when you do when, you don’t really win. Does this guy think he is going to receive a warm welcome from his employer when he just sued them?
russdog
It sounds like a planned test case to put an end to diversity programs.
Doug
russdog, it sounded that way to me, too.
Dwik27
Looks pretty gay to me. Thus a “closeted” win win for everyone. 😉
marion
I thought Graham said in a previous article that no one is 100 percent straight.
Cam
Look, let’s be honest. The guys father was a long time officer there. He could have applied ANY time using the family pipeline. Yet he waited until a diversity drive….why? Easy, probably his dad didn’t like the drive to hire more LGBTQ officers and had his son only apply during that drive.
Should they have screened out any straight applicants? No.
Was this planned by the guy and his father? Likely.
jcoberkrom
I applaud diversity and abhor discrimination!
What’s the solution?
As a gay man of 65 I’d rather have a fair, level headed straight cop than a gay cop of lesser abilities.
Diplomat-G
You came to this conclusion how exactly, did you have access to his behavioral analysis or his psych eval?
russdog
Why would the gay cop have lesser abilities?
Diplomat-G
Really is that what we are doing now, blaming a proactive program that promotes diversity? This little ass could have applied at any point but he specifically chose this drive to do so. This has nothing to do with diversity this has to do with a dumb little twit that would most likely be rejected if he had gone through the normal process.
Cam
Bingo! His father is a LONG TIME SENIOR OFFICER there. Don’t tell me he couldn’t have been walked in to an interview any time he wanted. But no, they planned and waited for the diversity drive so they could torpedo it.
truthseeker
The program sounds discriminatory to me. If he showed up, it shouldn’t matter biological sexual orientation, gender, race, or religion. You can’t magically discriminate against an applicant because “we’re doing a diversity drive – so no straight white males!”
Imagine if a business said, we have too many blacks so we’re only hiring white people at this event. If you cannot see how this is discriminatory then you are blind.
What is even the point of a diversity drive? How does having an equal number of whites, blacks, men, women, gays, straights, Asians, etc. make an organization better? Shouldn’t people be hired based on skills, abilities, and experience as opposed to gender, skin color, or orientation?
Brian
Really? It’s that what we’re doing now? Condoning the idea that certain people should not be able to apply for whatever job they want, whenever they want to?
He wanted this job, they were hiring, why wouldn’t he apply? What if they implemented a hiring freeze after this round of hiring? It would be monumentally stupid not to apply for a job you’re trying to get when you know they are hiring.
Diplomat-G
Brian,
So what stopped him from applying any other time,,, Gee nothing..
iamru2
STFU racist!
Brian
We have no idea why he didn’t apply another time. Maybe he was in school. Maybe he had a baby. Maybe he had another job that he didn’t want to leave. Maybe he wasn’t sure he was ready to apply. Maybe he was smoking weed and playing video games all day. And it doesn’t matter a single bit what the reason was. He applied when he applied because he was eligible to apply and doesn’t owe anybody an explanation.
And imru2, give the reverse racism crap a rest, it’s gotten really old and tedious.
Diplomat-G
imaru,
LOL is that the best your little brain can do?
barkomatic
Did the department simply decide to stop hiring straight white male applicants altogether? Or did this guy wait and apply specifically in a window when the department was trying to diversify the force? If it’s the former then of course discrimination is reprehensible against anyone. If it’s the latter then this was timed to create outrage and to end divinity drives. Neither this article nor the one linked reveals this important info which is suspicious to me.
Brian
So you think it’s plausible that this guy, who appears to have legitimately wanted this job since he took it after the lawsuit, passed up multiple opportunities to get hired and waited until a diversity drive hoping he wouldn’t be hired so he could sue?
Diplomat-G
Brian,
Where in the article did it say that he passed up several opportunities? Is it plausible that he did not qualify and he did this so he could sue? Yes, is it plausible that he dropped the lawsuit when he was granted a position? Yes.
Brian
Do we even know what a diversity drive actually is? I’ve been assuming that it was some sort of specific hiring event, but I don’t know if that’s even the case. Couldn’t it also be something like them simply declaring 2018 as the year of diversity?
Anyway, it’s stupid either way. If they want a more diverse force, whatever they did during the diversity drive should just be a part of their normal hiring process. Things like this make me think it’s really just a lip service thing to make it look like they’re making an effort, to shut up their critics.
DavidIntl
I am glad – and not surprised – that he won his case. Any sort of preferences or set-asides for members of the LGBT community will only trigger resentment from the straight community (and rightly so) and lead to people questioning whether a gay employee was hired on merit, or to fulfil a diversity quota. Let’s not go there.
Cam
The exact same argument people use to push against any movement on minority rights. “It might upset the straights”.
DavidIntl
@Cam My point wasn’t that one shouldn’t do anything that might possibly upset “the straights” per se – it was not giving them a legitimate reason to be upset. I have seen the very negative effects of reverse racism, and more recently reverse sexism, in academia, and as a member of that LGBT community definitely wouldn’t want to be a part of the next wave of that sort of approach.
metrobear
Sounds to me like this was a purposeful and successful attempt to put an end to the diversity recruitment drive. Don’t be naive, gentlemen. I bet dad and son are big time churchgoers, too.
Tombear
I saw the pic of Matt Furlong and my gaydar pegged!