Buckingham Palace once banned 'colored immigrants or foreigners' from holding office jobs, and it's not clear when the practice ended
Buckingham Palace once banned "colored immigrants or foreigners," The Guardian reports.
The palace wouldn't answer the newspaper's questions about when the ban was revoked.
The newspaper also reports that the Queen is exempt from racial and gender equality laws.
Buckingham Palace banned "colored immigrants or foreigners" from being employed in office roles until at least the late 1960s, according to documents obtained by The Guardian.
The Guardian discovered the royal family documents at the National Archives as part of a larger investigation into the Queen's role in the British government.
According to the documents, the Queen's chief financial manager said in 1968 that people from ethnic minority backgrounds were allowed to be employed as domestic servants in the royal household, but were banned from holding clerical jobs.
The Guardian reported that Buckingham Palace wouldn't answer questions about when the ban was revoked.
The report also stated that the Queen has been exempt from race and gender equality laws since they were introduced in the UK in the 1970s. This means women and people from ethnic minorities working for the royal household have been unable to complain to the courts if they believe they have been discriminated against.
Buckingham Palace told The Guardian that it has a separate process relating to complaints of discrimination, however it did not elaborate on what this process consists of.
A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace told Insider that the household complies with the provisions of the Equality Act, which protects people from discrimination in the workplace and wider society.
"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 palace spokesperson said in a statement sent to Insider. "The principles of Crown Application and Crown Consent are long established and widely known."
"The Royal Household and the Sovereign comply with the provisions of the Equality Act, in principle and in practise. This is reflected in the diversity, inclusion and dignity at work policies, procedures and practises within the Royal Household," the statement added. "Any complaints that might be raised under the Act follow a formal process that provides a means of hearing and remedying any complaint."
The Queen faced criticism last year due to her failure to provide a statement in response to the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests that were held across the US, UK, and other countries throughout the world.
The monarch has also failed to acknowledge the royal family's involvement in Britain's slave trade in the 1500s. Queen Elizabeth I publicly supported Captain John Hawkins, who captured 300 Africans and exchanged them for hides, ginger, and sugar in 1562.
The Sunday Times reported in March that the palace is planning to appoint a diversity chief, who will encourage palace aids to take part in "listen and learn" exercises with the aim of being more inclusive to ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ+ communities.
"This is an issue which has been taken very seriously across the Households," an unnamed royal source told the newspaper. "We have the policies, procedures, and programs in place but we haven't seen the progress we would like and accept more needs to be done. We can always improve."
The source added that this has been in the making for a while. '"The work to do this has been underway for some time now and comes with the full support of the family," they told The Mail.
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