Introduction

The landmark act of parliament known as the Equality Act 2010 received royal assent on 8 April 2010 and came into effect a few months later, on 1 October. It was the culmination of a legislative process that, by 2010, had lasted in the UK for at least 45 years, had been deeply influenced by parallel developments in other European countries and the US, and had entailed much campaigning and deliberating, and much organising and reorganising (Hepple, 2010). Its most promising features included (1) a general duty imposed on all public authorities not only to avoid adverse impacts of their policies and practices but also to promote greater equality of outcome, (2) specific duties whose purpose was to support, focus and clarify the general duty and (3) a holistic approach to non-discrimination, namely one that was based on the commonalities between different strands and facets of diversity such as age, disability, gender, race, religion and sexuality.

One significant and indeed foundational piece of reorganising occurred in the UK in 2007. During the last week of September that year, farewell newsletters were sent to their friends, contacts and supporters by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC, founded in 1975), the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE, founded in 1976) and the Disability Rights Commission (DRC, founded in 1999). All three of these had been supporting an aspect of equalities legislation in England, Scotland and Wales. A few days later, on 28 September, all three would cease to exist as separate entities, and from 1 October 2007 onwards each would instead be part of a new body formed by each merging with the other two. The CRE told its friends it was becoming part of a body to be named the CEHR, the Commission for Equality and Human Rights. The DRC and the EOC, however, each made a slightly different announcement. They for their part, they said, were joining a body to be named as the EHRC, the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

At the time, the confusion did not appear to matter. Certainly it was trivial compared with other issues facing the fields of disability, gender and race equality at that time. Nevertheless, the confusion looked suspicious and ominous.