Buckingham Palace Had a Policy Against Hiring Minorities for Office Jobs, According to a New Report

A new report from The Guardian reveals Buckingham Palace had a policy against hiring racial minorities for office jobs in the 1960s.

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  • Officials in charge of hiring at Buckingham Palace engaged in problematic practices until at least the late 1960s, according to a new report.
  • The Guardian unearthed documents from the U.K.'s National Archive that showed that the palace had a policy against hiring "coloured immigrants or foreigners" for clerical positions, but would hire them for domestic servant positions. 
  • The report also said that palace aides had sought exemptions for royal household staff from anti-discrimination labor laws in the 1970s.

Buckingham Palace had some very problematic hiring practices in place until at least the late 1960s, according to a new report.

According to a report from The Guardian published Wednesday, the Queen's chief financial manager made it clear in 1968 that "it was not, in fact, the practice to appoint coloured immigrants or foreigners" to clerical roles in the royal household (minorities were permitted to be hired as domestic servants at the time, however). The newspaper cited documents from the U.K.'s National Archive as the source of the information.

That wasn't the only cringe-worthy reveal in the The Guardian's report, however. The documents also showed that palace aides had attempted to obtain exemptions from laws prohibiting discriminatory hiring practices for the royal household as recently as the 1970s. 

"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! News in response to the report. "The principles of Crown Application and Crown Consent are long established and widely known."

Buckingham Palace chose not to comment on the hiring policy for the Guardian story, but did say that records showed minorities were employed by the Palace in the 1990s (the Palace claimed that records on racial backgrounds weren't kept before then). 

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london, united kingdom june 13 embargoed for publication in uk newspapers until 48 hours after create date and time hrh prince edward, the earl of wessex, lady louise windsor, hrh sophie countess of wessex and hrh prince harry on the balcony of buckingham palace during the annual event of the queens colour of first battalion grenadier guards as they are trooped to mark her official brithday on june 13, 2009 in london, england photo by indigogetty images

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