school hours. Mr Mandla reported the matter to the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) who took up the case. The CRE alleged that the son had been unlawfully discriminated against, either directly or indirectly, on racial grounds, in that he had been denied a place at the school because of his custom of wearing a turban. 4.8.3 The meaning of the word ‘ethnic’ in s 3 of the Race Relations Act 1976 The case raised a number of issues. The first issue, which was of tremendous importance to the Sikh community, was whether the Race Relations Act was the relevant statute to take action under. The Race Relations Act states that it is unlawful to discriminate against another on racial grounds in the areas covered by the Act. One of these areas is education. To bring an action, it had to be proved that Sikhs were a racial group. Section 3 of the Act defines racial grounds as: …a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins. The main argument centred around whether Sikhs fitted into the word ‘ethnic’ as other words and phrases in the list in s 3 were accepted as not applicable. The trial court found that Sikhs were not a racial group and the appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal and came before Lord Denning. The Court of Appeal had two choices. It could take the teleological approach—looking at the wider context—considering the history behind the legislation, the mischief that it was designed to rectify; or it could choose a formalist approach, considering the text, the word or words, and their possible meanings in a more literal sense. Lord Denning had always, in essence, taken a teleological approach. He had, for much of his legal career as a senior judge, fought against blind literalism. He had always fought for the right to ‘fill in the gaps’ left in legislation. Indeed, his career was often based on the right to take the broader teleological view rather than the narrow, literalist view. Surprisingly, he chose, in this case, to take the formalist approach, to stand by the literal meaning of the words. He discussed the history of the word ‘ethnic’ (its etymology). Certainly, the etymology of the word is fascinating; however, why did the legislators put in the word ‘ethnic’? Did they do so after scanning its etymology? Of course, it is not known. Yet, an interpretation based on the history of a word obviously presumes that, yes, the legislators did consider the etymology of the word. Otherwise, there is no point in the court doing so. When constructing legal rules in fixed verbal form, language is of the utmost importance. Thought is given to the best words to be used to ‘fix’ or ‘stick’ the rule, so that contrary interpretations cannot be reached by courts; and so that the mischief to be tackled is tackled. However, as noted in Chapter 2, the flexibility of language will not allow it to be permanently fixed. The choice of words is often determined by: (1) a desire to make it impossible for judges to change the meaning; (2) a desire to make a major policy change as uncontentious as possible;