Although discrimination by association is 10 years old employers are still not yet fully aware of its impact, particularly as the population ages. It took the European Court case of Coleman v Attridge in 2008 to declare that discrimination against a worker because of her child’s disability was unlawful, even though it was not specifically outlawed by the Disability Discrimination Act.
The 2010 Equality Act allowed for associative discrimination for all claims of direct discrimination and of harassment (other than for pregnancy, maternity, marriage or civil partnership).
So treating someone unfavourably because of their partner’s race would be unlawful direct race discrimination. The majority of issues in practice are likely though to arise from the impact on the workplace of employees dealing with family members.
The Court of Appeal in Hainsworth v Ministry of Defence in 2014 made it clear that associative discrimination did not apply to the duty to make reasonable adjustments – that duty only covered a disabled employee, not an employee associated with a disabled person.