Positive action is a controversial term, roughly synonymous with affirmative action

Affirmative action

Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...

, used in identity politics

Identity politics

Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...

 currents to connote promotion of people based on belonging to non majority

Majority

A majority is a subset of a group consisting of more than half of its members. This can be compared to a plurality, which is a subset larger than any other subset; i.e. a plurality is not necessarily a majority as the largest subset may consist of less than half the group's population...

 identity groups in the workplace, educational institutions and positions in society, purpotedly without prejudicing the criteria of selection by merit. In the United Kingdom in Harriet Harman

Harriet Harman

Harriet Ruth Harman QC is a British Labour Party politician, who is the Member of Parliament for Camberwell and Peckham, and was MP for the predecessorPeckham constituency from 1982 to 1997...

's Equality Act 2010 ss 158-159, the term is used in the context of employment to allow selection of a candidate from an "under-represented" group, so long as he or she is no less than equally qualified compared to another potential candidate that is not from the under-represented group.

European law

• Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union Article 157(4)

• Kalanke v Freie Hansestadt Bremen [1995] IRLR 660, [1996] ECR I-03051 (C-450/93)
• Marschall v Land Nordrhein Westfalen [1997] ECR I-06363 (C-409/95)
• Re Badeck’s application [2001] 2 CMLR 6 (C-158/97)
• Abrahamsson and Anderson v Fogelqvist [2000] ECR I-05539 (C-407/98)

See also

• Political correctness
  Political correctness
  Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
  
  
• EU law
• UK employment discrimination law
• Positive Action
  Positive Action
  Positive Action is the term describing a series of political protests and strikes in pre-independence Ghana; a political activism campaign. The campaign was launched by Kwame Nkrumah before his election by popular vote as the ruler of Gold Coast and then Prime Minister of Ghana after the independence...
  
  
• Positive action (disambiguation)
  Positive action (disambiguation)
  Positive action is the promotion of an under-represented group without prejudicing the criteria of selection by merit.Positive action may also refer to:*Positive Action, a series of political activism in pre-independence Ghana...
  
  
• Equal Opportunity
  Equal opportunity
  Equal opportunity, or equality of opportunity, is a controversial political concept; and an important informal decision-making standard without a precise definition involving fair choices within the public sphere...
  
  
• Social Equality
  Social equality
  Social equality is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and the...