Communications giant BT has lost an appeal over an autism discrimination case with a Queen's University graduate .

Kevin Meier, 24, was rejected by the company after he applied for a place on its graduate recruitment scheme.

The Belfast man, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, dyslexia and dyspraxia, has a very high IQ (139).

In November last year, a tribunal had found in Mr Meier's favour that BT had discriminated against a job applicant with disabilities. He was awarded more than £18,400 because of a loss of earnings and injury to feelings.

This week, the Court of Appeal in Belfast dismissed an appeal by BT against the finding.

Mr Meier said: "I am delighted that the Court of Appeal has upheld the Tribunal’s decision. I believe it was an important case to take. I am grateful to the Equality Commission for their support. I hope this judgement will help other people with disabilities to secure employment in the future."

Mr Meier graduated in 2017 with a 2:1 degree in Computer Science from Queen's University . He applied for a post with BT under its Graduate Recruitment Scheme and indicated on his application that he was seeking to avail of the BT Disability Confident Scheme, which he believed guaranteed him an interview if he met the minimum criteria.

As part of the automated recruitment process Mr Meier was asked to sit an online Situational Strengths Test (SST). This is a widely-used recruitment tool which uses scenarios as a way of assessing applicants’ situational judgement.

Mr Meier failed the SST, scoring 29 out of a potential 180 and received an email informing him that based on the outcome of the test they would not be taking his application forward to the next stage.

The Tribunal, which had earlier found in Mr Meier’s favour, had accepted the evidence of a specialist clinical psychologist that the SST would put people with ASD at a substantial disadvantage over people without an ASD diagnosis.

Upholding the Tribunal’s finding the Court of Appeal, said: "The Tribunal further concluded that the reasonable adjustments (that the claimant should not take the SST or that the score should not count against him) would have removed the substantial disadvantage from which the claimant was suffering.

"The reasonable adjustments were not impractical; would not have disrupted BT’s activities and did not put a strain on BT’s resources."

Dr Michael Wardlow, Chief Commissioner of the Equality Commission , welcomed the decision of the Court of Appeal, and said: "It’s clear from Kevin’s experience and from the Tribunal and Court of Appeal judgements that, where part of a recruitment process is not suitable for some disabled applicants, a reasonable adjustment must be made to allow someone with different but equal abilities to show how they could meet the requirements of the job. All employers must recognise that they have a legal duty to be proactive and consider what reasonable adjustments would be appropriate.

"One of the issues in this case was that while Kevin recorded his disability on his application form, this was not included in the information that went to the Graduate Recruitment Team. Therefore the Graduate Recruitment Team were not aware of Kevin’s disability or that he wished to be considered under the company’s Disability Confident Guarantee scheme.

"On-line recruitment processes are now very widely used and these findings mean employers will need to review their use. We would encourage employers to look again at how they ensure all of their recruitment policies and processes are inclusive and offer equality of opportunities to job applicants and employees with disabilities.”

"The gap between disabled people and non-disabled people in employment is a large one and has been there for many years. Not just employers, but our policy-makers, must look again at how it can be reduced."

A spokesperson for BT the firm "is committed to diversity in our workplaces".

"We believe our track record of employing people with disabilities speaks for itself," they added.

"We’re proud that Business Disability Forum named us a Disability Confident Leader in recognition of our work to remove barriers to employing disabled people (and) pleased the tribunal acknowledged our efforts to offer a range of adjustments, such as adjusting the test conditions or simply bypassing the test altogether.

"However, we accept that, on this occasion, we didn’t live up to our usual high standards and could have been more proactive in agreeing reasonable adjustments earlier in the process," they continued.

"We will, nonetheless, review our recruitment processes and remain committed to offering equality of opportunity to all job applicants."

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