Buckingham Palace Responded to Accusations of Banning Ethnic Minorities From Office Jobs
Update: E! News published a response from Buckingham Palace after The Guardian published allegations that the palace banned members of ethnic minorities and certain foreigners from specific positions in the royal household. The statement claims that the information was coming from "second-hand account of conversations" and do not reflect the current situation.
"Claims based on a second-hand account of conversations from over 50 years ago should not be used to draw or infer conclusions about modern day events or operations," a Buckingham Palace spokesperson told E!. "The principles of Crown Application and Crown Consent are long established and widely known."
Previously: A new report from The Guardian has surfaced documents that will further incite conversations about the British royal family and race.
The outlet, which has been investigating the royal family's use of parliamentary procedure to influence British laws, uncovered documents from the National Archives that show the Queen's courtiers banned "coloured immigrants or foreigners" from serving in office roles in the royal household until at least the late 1960s.
The Guardian reports that the documents show how in 1968, the Queen's chief financial manager informed civil servants that "it was not, in fact, the practice to appoint coloured immigrants or foreigners" to clerical roles in the royal household, although they were allowed to work as domestic servants.
Buckingham Palace declined to answer The Guardian's questions about when the ban was revoked, therefore leaving it unclear as to when the practices ended. The Queen, The Guardian reports, has been exempt for more than four decades from laws making it illegal to refuse to hire someone on the grounds of their race or ethnicity. As such, it's not possible for people from ethnic minorities working for the household to raise complaints to the court over possible discrimination.
Buckingham Palace did not dispute the exemption in a statement to The Guardian and added that it has a different process for hearing discrimination complaints, but did not say what the process consists of.
Earlier this year during an interview with Oprah, Meghan Markle, the first mixed-race member of the royal family, revealed that a member of the family expressed concerns about the skin tone her child would have.
Following the interview, Prince William was asked if the family was racist to which he replied, "We're very much not a racist family."
