Are you ‘oblivious’ to the scale of racial abuse in your organisation?

Hate crime has doubled in the last six years, with race hate crime taking three quarters of these crime figures. So perhaps it’s not surprising that an enquiry carried out by the Equality and Human Rights Commission has found alarming levels of racial harassment across higher education providers. However, many organisations are both unaware of the issue and overconfident in their ability to handle it. What’s the situation in your organisation?

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has published ‘Tackling racial harassment: Universities Challenged’. The report shows that alarming levels of racial harassment exist in higher education providers, with an inability to tackle this effectively.

The report found, for example, that:

• 24% of ethnic minority students experienced racial harassment on campus
• At least two thirds of those who had experienced racial harassment had not reported the incident
• Less than half of staff who experienced racial harassment notified their organisation
• Students and staff suggested that they did not come forward about their experiences because they had no confidence that the incident would be addressed.

Racial harassment can cause humiliation, isolation, loss of confidence and serious harm to mental health and wellbeing. Students who experienced racial harassment said they were left feeling angry, upset, depressed, anxious and vulnerable; 8% said they had felt suicidal. Staff reported experiencing similar impacts.

Rebecca Hilsenrath, Chief Executive of the EHRC said:

We look to them [providers] to help us to grow as individuals and prepare us to be good citizens. It is considerably disappointing to discover that, instead of being progressive and forward thinking, they are living in the past and have failed to learn from history.'

Ofsted

One of the reasons why organisations are oblivious to the scale of prejudice and discrimination taking place is that they can often focus on discrimination in it’s extreme form. But this might mean that they fail to identify and tackle the subtle things that can take place in an organisation on a daily basis.

Under the 2019 Inspection Framework, Ofsted will evaluate the extent to which you:

• ‘develop and maintain a positive and respectful culture, where the principles of equality and diversity are nurtured’
• create ‘an environment where bullying, peer-on-peer abuse or discrimination are not tolerated’

Creating and maintaining an inclusive culture where all forms of prejudice and discrimination are actively tackled is therefore an essential part of your journey to outstanding and beyond – to be the ‘best of the best’.

One of my most popular training courses is ‘Dignity, Respect, Inclusion – actively tackling prejudice and discrimination. You can download publicity from my website about this training here

You might also be interested in my training workshops on actively tackling unconscious bias. You can download publicity from my website about this training here

Recommendations by the EHRC

The EHRC have made a series of recommendations for the Government and for higher education providers to tackle racial harassment.

You can download the executive summary here

You can download the full report here