Abstract
Equal Opportunities Commission v Director of Education marks an important milestone in the history of Hong Kong’s anti-discrimination movement. Prompted by a decades-old public policy allocating secondary school places to primary six students it believed to be discriminatory against girls, the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) successfully challenged the now defunct government practice under the Sex Discrimination Ordinance (SDO). Based on this symbolic and educational decision, this chapter will begin by summarising the fact of the case, followed by an analysis of the claims in question and the meaning of sex discrimination. It will then discuss the value of equality, including its various rationales including “formal equality”, “treating like alike”, and “equal opportunities”. It will argue that, despite its universal appeal, equality as a policy justification can be both elusive and politically sensitive. Citing examples from Hong Kong and overseas jurisdictions, this chapter argues that an apparently benign anti-discrimination measure can in some cases generate difficult ethical dilemmas and controversies. Drawing on the plights of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong, this chapter will end with an observation that substantive equality requires proactive measures to help those whose existing disadvantages prevent them from competing fairly in society.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For a related discussion of the formal concept of justice and the Aristotelian idea of “treating equals equally”, see Tsang’s chapter in this book, pp. 168–170.
- 2.
Yung (Chap. 1 of this book) points out that some social values are relative and vary with time, particularly social values that rest on the social, economic, political, and technological conditions under which a particular society is situated. As the societal conditions change, this category of social values also changes, affecting our views on appropriate treatment of people of different sex and race.
- 3.
Yung (Chap. 1 of this book) highlights that values, including social values, may conflict with each other on a social and policy issue. In the controversy over affirmative action and the case of SSPA system, for example, the value placed on merit and the value placed on giving extra assistance to the disadvantaged may conflict with each other.
- 4.
Here, the apparent conflict between the values of religious freedom and sex equality is an example of conflict of values over a social issue as discussed by Yung in Chap. 1 of this book.
- 5.
This is in line with what Yung says in Chap. 1 of this book that the kind of government and its policies are largely the product of the synergy resulted from different actors within society, including civil society. For further discussion of the importance of civic engagement, see Yu’s chapter in this book, pp. 208–211.
References
Journals and Articles
Cheung, S. (2011, May 19). Police give extra points for foreign languages. South China Morning Post.
Hepple, B. (1990). Discrimination and equality of opportunity—northern Irish lessons. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 10, 408–421.
Lam, W.-K. (2011, December 29). Out of touch. South China Morning Post.
Lee, M. Y. K. (2008). Universal human dignity: Some reflections in the Asian context. Asian Journal of Comparative Law, 3, 283–313.
Neumark, D., Bank, R. J., & Van Nort, K. D. (1996). Sex discrimination in restaurant hiring: An audit study. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 111, 915–941.
Ngo, J. (2013, September 18). Hong Kong Unison threatens court action on racially segregated schools. South China Morning Post.
Nip, A. (2010, July 25). Rejected in HK, Faiza graduated from Ivy League. South China Morning Post.
Parfit, D. (1998). Equality and priority. In A. Mason (Ed.), Ideals of equality (pp. 1–20). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Vlastos, G. (1941). Slavery in Plato’s thought. Philosophical Review, 50, 289–304.
Westen, P. (1982). The empty idea of equality. Harvard Law Review, 95, 537–596.
Williams, B. (1967). The idea of equality. In Peter Laslett & W. G. Runciman (Eds.), Philosophy, politics and society (Second Series) (pp. 110–131). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Zhao, S. (2014, January 15). Chinese as a second language to be taught to ethnic minority pupils. South China Morning Post.
Books and Chapters
Aristotle, E. N. (1925). Ethica Nicomachea (W. D. Ross, Trans.). London: Oxford University Press.
Dworkin, R. (1986). A matter of principle. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Fredman, S. (2002). Discrimination law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lee, M. Y. K. (2010). Equality, dignity, and same-sex marriage: A rights disagreement in democratic societies. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Online Publication
Dugger, C. (2010). Campus that apartheid ruled faces a policy rift. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/world/africa/23safrica.html?ref=affirmativeaction&pagewanted=1. Accessed 16 June 2011.
Epstein, R. (2009). Ricci v DeStefano: Getting back to first principles of affirmative action. Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/29/ricci-destefano-new-haven-supreme-court-affirmative-action-opinions-columnists-firefighters.html. Accessed 16 June 2011.
Equal Opportunities Commission. (1999). Formal investigation report on secondary school places allocation (SSPA) system. http://www.eoc.org.hk/eoc/graphicsfolder/inforcenter/investigation/list.aspx?itemid=1210&investigationname=1. Accessed 16 June 2011.
Equal Opportunities Commission. (2011). Report on the working group on education for ethnic minorities. http://www.eoc.org.hk/eoc/Upload/UserFiles/File/EducationReportE.pdf. Accessed 16 June 2011.
Hong Kong Human Rights Commission & Society for Community Organization. (2009). Comments on the Hong Kong special administrative region report under the international convention on elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. LC Paper No. CB(2)1860/08-09(02). http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr08-09/english/panels/ca/papers/ca0615cb2-1860-2-e.pdf. Accessed 12 July 2011.
Iqbal, N. (2011). Ban on Muslim women covering faces with veils in France. BBC News. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/13032250. Accessed 12 July 2011.
MTR Corporation. (2011). Legislative council panel on transport subcommittee on matters relating to railways: Facilities and design of MTR Train compartments. LC Paper No. CB(1)1072/10-11(07). http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr10-11/english/panels/tp/tp_rdp/papers/tp_rdp0121cb1-1072-7-e.pdf. Accessed 10 January 2012.
Cases
Brown v Board of Education (1954) 347 US 483.
Equal Opportunities Commission v Director of Education (2001) 2 HKLRD 690.
Fisher v University of Texas at Austin, Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, decided June 24, 2013, No. 11-345.
Griggs et al v Duke Power Company (1971) 401 US 424.
Palmer v Thompson (1971) 403 US 217.
Plessy v Ferguson (1896) 163 US 537.
Ricci v DeStefano (2009) 557 US.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lee, M.Y.K. (2016). From the Case of Sex Discrimination to the Ideas of Equality and Equal Opportunities. In: Yung, B., Kam Por, Y. (eds) Ethical Dilemmas in Public Policy. Governance and Citizenship in Asia. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0437-7_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0437-7_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-0435-3
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-0437-7
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)