“Racial discrimination can be unconscious; tribunals should examine whether race influenced treatment.”
Mr Nagarajan, of Indian origin, applied for employment with London Regional Transport but was unsuccessful. He had previously brought race discrimination proceedings against the organization. He claimed his unsuccessful application was due to racial discrimination and victimization because of his previous complaint.
Whether direct racial discrimination required conscious awareness by the discriminator that they were treating someone less favorably because of their race, and what test should be applied to determine whether discrimination had occurred.
The House of Lords held that direct discrimination did not require conscious motivation. The test was whether race was an effective cause of the less favorable treatment, regardless of whether the discriminator was consciously aware of being influenced by racial considerations.
This case revolutionized discrimination law by recognizing unconscious bias and making it easier to prove discrimination cases. It reflects modern understanding of how discrimination operates and remains highly influential in equality law.
You're reading the free summary of Nagarajan v London Regional Transport. Create a free account to unlock the full reasoning, the cited authorities and the verbatim judgment — plus structured briefs for 412,000+ UK judgments.
No card required. Free forever.
OSCOLA Citation
Nagarajan v London Regional Transport [1999] UKHL 36, [2000] 1 AC 501
Multiple official and mirror sources — pick whichever loads cleanly on your network.
Falls back to Google for old citations BAILII catalogues separately
Common Room
0 comments · About the Common Room →
No comments yet — start the discussion.
Voted-best comments help future students and feed Caselaw's AI study tools.