Does ‘diversity management’ reduce discrimination?
An Anglo-American discussion
1 April 2014, King’s College London
Biographies (abridged) of chair and speakers
Robin Allen QC
Robin Allen is the Head of Cloisters and specialises in employment, equality,
discrimination and human rights, public law and local authority work. In 2012 he was
Chambers and Partners' ‘Employment Law QC of the Year’, for the second time. He
acts for a very wide range of clients, from individuals to organisations, directors to the
low paid, including AGE UK, both UK Equality Commissions and the Children’s
Commissioner for Northern Ireland. He has undertaken many public interest amicus
and intervention briefs, both in the UK and worldwide, for among others the Equality
and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the Harvard University Law School, Public
Concern at Work, and Liberty. In his advisory work he has a particular interest in
corporate governance, the proper use of publicity powers, regulatory issues and the
making of politically sensitive decisions by all kinds of public bodies. For instance he
recently drafted the agreements between the EHRC and two police forces on the
protocols for stop and search. His books include Employment Law and Human Rights
(OUP - 2010), and Family Rights at Work (Jordans - 2012).
Professor Geraldine Healy
Professor Healy's research interests lie in the interconnecting fields of employment
relations, inequalities and career. She has published widely on gender and ethnicity
and trade unions, discrimination and disadvantage, and individualism and collectivism.
She is on the editorial board of a number of journals. Her most recent book is 'Women
and Trade Union Leadership' with Gill Kirton (Routledge, 2013). Other books on
equality include: Ethnicity and Gender at Work (Palgrave 2008) (with Harriet Bradley),
Diversity, Ethnicity, Migration and Work: International Perspectives (2011) Palgrave
Macmillan (With Franklin Oikelome) and Equalities, Inequalities and Diversity (
Palgrave ) (co-editor with Gill Kirton and Mike Noon). Geraldine has a particular
interest in the intersectional nature of discrimination and disadvantage; inequality
regimes; individualism and collectivism; career; the gap between equality and diversity
policies and practices and multiple rationalities. Her research recognises the
importance of a multilayered analysis and the role of history. Geraldine has recently
worked with Gill Kirton on a Leverhulme funded International Network on Women and
Trade Union Leadership with Cornell and Rutgers universities. She has undertaken a
number of projects on equalities and disadvantage including the ESRC funded Future
of Work project on 'Handling the Double Disadvantage - the experience of black and
minority women in trade unions' and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC now
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EHRC) project on 'Workplace Cultures: what does and does not work'. In addition, she
has led equality projects for the European Social Fund and for the Department of
Constitutional Affairs (now the Ministry of Justice).
Professor Maleiha Malik
Maleiha Malik is a Professor in Law. She studied law at the University of London and
University of Oxford. She is a barrister and a member of the Honourable Society of
Gray’s Inn. Maleiha Malik’s research focuses on the theory and practice of
discrimination law. She has written extensively on discrimination law, minority
protection and feminist theory. She is the co-author of a leading text titled
‘Discrimination Law: Theory and Practice’ which was published in 2008. She is, along
with Dr Jon Wilson from the Department of History at KCL, the co-ordinator of the
AHRC project on ‘Traditions in the Present’ which explores the relevance of 'tradition'
in contemporary societies. Maleiha Malik's current research focuses on the
intersection between sexual and cultural equality, and it explores the adjustments that
may need to be made to feminist theory to accommodate increasing cultural pluralism.
She teaches courses in Jurisprudence and Legal Theory, Discrimination Law and
European Law to undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Professor David B. Oppenheimer
Professor Oppenheimer is Clinical Professor of Law at Berkeley Law. He is the author
of many scholarly articles on civil rights history, racism, anti-discrimination law, and
comparative equality law, and has tried many discrimination law cases. His coauthored books include a casebook on comparative equality law; teaching materials
on discrimination law; the award-winning Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a ColorBlind Society (University of California Press 2003); and chapters in MacKinnon and
Siegel’s Directions in Sexual Harassment Law (Yale University Press 2003) and
Friedman's Employment Discrimination Stories (Foundation Press 2006). Professor
Oppenheimer has presented scholarly papers at numerous universities, and at the
annual meetings of the Association of American Law Schools and the American
Political Science Association. His previous service at Berkeley includes founding
director of the Boalt Hall Employment Discrimination Clinic, and Visiting Professor of
Law. Professor Oppenheimer has also served as Professor of Law and Associate
Dean at Golden Gate University School of Law, Assistant Clinical Professor at the
University of San Francisco (co-directing a civil rights clinic) and Visiting Professor of
Law at Sciences-Po Ecole de Droit in Paris, the University of Paris X (Nanterre)
(where he directed a comparative law summer program), the University of Paris I
(Pantheon), and the University of Bologna. Professor Oppenheimer graduated from
the University Without Walls (Berkeley) and Harvard Law School. He clerked for
California Chief Justice Rose Bird, and thereafter worked as a staff attorney for the
California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, prosecuting discrimination
cases, before entering full time teaching. He teaches Civil Procedure, Comparative
anti-Discrimination Law, and Leadership for Law Student Leaders, and directs the
Berkeley Law program in Professional Skills.
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