Does offering women and children first priority for limited places on a lifeboat breach discrimination law?

Question

In your jurisdiction, would the operators of the Titanic's decision to offer women and children first priority for the limited lifeboat places have amounted to unlawful discrimination (such as on the bases of sex and age), if the current laws on discrimination had existed at the relevant time?

Answer 1

england-and-wales

No

In the case of the children, refer to s13(2) of the Equality Act 2010:

If the protected characteristic is age, A does not discriminate against B if A can show A's treatment of B to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

The aim must be a real, objective consideration. In this case, saving the lives of children would constitute a legitimate aim as they are generally more vulnerable than adults and weaker swimmers than adults.

More generally, the following applies to both women and children. If the rescuing individual reasonably believes that the person with the protected characteristic (eg age or sex) suffers a disadvantage connected to the characteristic, then under s158(2):

This Act does not prohibit P from taking any action which is a proportionate means of achieving the aim of—

(a) enabling or encouraging persons who share the protected characteristic to overcome or minimise that disadvantage ...

Assuming the individual reasonably believes there is such a disadvantage, then they will not incur any liability under the Equality Act. As the act requires the standard of reasonable belief, this is not about whether that belief is objectively true. It doesn't matter if it is true that women and children need this extra help; it only matters what the individual helping them believed was true (provided it is deemed reasonable to hold such a belief).