Author: Judith Squires

Following the publication of our Institutional Statement on Race Equality in March, and as part of our response to the Black Lives Matter movement in June, the senior leadership team announced the establishment of a new Anti-Racism Steering Group.

The Group, co-chaired by myself and Dr Jane Khawaja, aims to help the University develop strategies and take action to address individual, cultural and structural racism across our institution. Reporting directly to University Executive Board (UEB), the Group will develop an institutional action plan focused on key pillars that will incorporate:

1. Teaching and Learning: to cohere with the attainment gap plan
2. Recruitment: of staff and students, to include widening participation
3. Naming: buildings and the crest
4. Support: for students and staff – harassment policies and training.
5. Governance: to include external validation and recognition
6. Research and Civic Engagement: connects to city partners and collaborative research

As you can see, the Group has a wide-ranging remit and will build upon many of the activities and initiatives that are already in place. These include (but are by no means limited to):

• Establishing the BAME Staff Network where colleagues can share a sense of community and work with us to ensure that BAME staff have a consistent and positive experience at the University;
• Setting targets to significantly increase the number of Black students and Asian students enrolling at the University by 2025;
• Creating the new post of Professor of the History of Slavery at the University, and the appointment of Professor Olivette Otele earlier this year;
• Signing-up to the Race Equality Charter (REC) and our ambition to submit for recognition in 2021;
• Delivering outreach work with local schools and community groups;
• Increasing our support for local communities, most recently by reaching out to the Changing Your Mindset group in Bristol to support young people’s success;
• Delivering the Insight into Bristol summer school programme which guarantees students who complete the programme an offer of a place at the university, usually at the contextual offer level;
• Launching Report and Support – a new online platform that offers staff and students a quick and easy way to report specific incidents;
• Developing our Stand Up Speak Out web resource bringing together a range of policy, support and learning resources for staff who may be experiencing or witnessing unacceptable behaviour at work;
• Participating in the Stepping Up initiative, a positive action programme aimed at improving the representation of BAME people, as well as other groups, in senior leadership roles within Bristol and the wider region;
• Launching an apprenticeship talent pipeline to drive ethnic diversity whilst taking into consideration the skills gaps present in underrepresented groups in industry demand areas such as Finance, IT, Human Resources, Engineering and the Creative Industries;
• Publishing the results of our first Ethnicity Pay Gap Report and taking action to address any inequalities;
• Introducing positive action measures and training in unconscious bias with a specific focus on recruitment and promotion of staff;
• Funding research internships which provide paid experience in research for new graduates, in order to increase the number of BAME students progressing to postgraduate study;
• Setting an ambitious target to eliminate the BAME awards gap at the university by 2025 and developed a comprehensive action plan to address this, informed by research we have commissioned from Bristol SU;
• Beginning the work of decolonising our curricula, led by academic colleagues with expertise in this area;
• Providing staff training in race equality; harassment and hate crime awareness training delivered by SARI; and intercultural awareness training delivered by Kynfolk;
• Providing access to specialist counselling services for our BAME students and staff from Nilaari;
• Establishing a web-based resource drawn from research published by University of Bristol researchers around race, racism and anti-racism;
• Sponsoring the East Bristol Into University Centre which serves an area of the city with a high BAME population;
• Supporting city-based projects such as CARGO (Charting African Resilience Generating Opportunities) and Iconic Black Britons.

Leading the case for legislative change

A key focus for members of the Steering Group will be a review of our recruitment practices. The senior leadership team is committed to increasing the racial diversity of the University’s workforce across all levels of our institution and we have initiated a range of action to support progress in this space over the years.

However, we recognise that after almost ten years of working within the constraints and uncertainty of the positive action measures included in the Equality Act 2010, more directive action is needed.

We believe that a tension exists within the existing legislation between direct discrimination and positive action measures. This tension has restricted efforts to improve the representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff across our organisations, our city and across the wider UK.

To that end, alongside several other local organisations and community groups, we are formally requesting that the government introduce an amendment to existing provisions in the Equality Act relating to direct discrimination.

This amendment aims to enable specific ethnic groups to be treated more favourably in employment that other ethnicities where we reasonably think that the specific ethnic group experiences disadvantage. It would also provide clarity and reassurance to employers in terms of what is and is not permissible by law to improve representation of specific ethnic groups in all levels of employment where they are currently under-represented.

Ultimately, an amendment of this kind would support all employers to take a flexible, evidence-based and focused approach that would actively seek to level the playing field and minimise barriers to employment experienced by different ethnic groups.

You can read more about the campaign in this Bristol 24/4 article which features our employability and opportunity manager, Rebecca Scott.

Next steps

I’m proud that out University is leading the way on this campaign and we hope to garner widespread support for our proposed changes. However, we recognise that parliamentary action can take time and success is not guaranteed. In the meantime, we will continue to develop a targeted and segmented approach to positive action measures with the view to develop their efficacy and impact across our community.

We must eradicate racial discrimination in all its forms from our University and ensure the experience of studying and working here is positive and welcoming for everyone, of all ethnic and racial backgrounds. We aim to be bold and far reaching in our action, as I hope the above example demonstrates.

There is still much work to do, but I look forward to updating you on further progress in the coming months.

 

The reality of racism was brought into sharp and disturbing focus last week as we saw how for some people Black lives simply do not matter. Sadly, the death of George Floyd in the United States is not a one-off occurrence and Black communities across the globe face racism, violence, and discrimination on an everyday basis.

We stand in solidarity with our Black staff and students against all forms of racism and social injustice.  At times like these, it is all too easy to look to people of colour to educate those around them, adding to the pressure and trauma that many are already experiencing during this time.

We recognise that it is not the responsibility of our Black colleagues and students to convince us why we need to tackle societal, structural, and institutional racism. It is the responsibility of us all to eradicate racism. We will continue to challenge this through our research, our education, and our civic engagements.  Our University with its critical role in education and shaping social policy, must be at the forefront of the continuing struggle against prejudice and inequity based on race.

We recognise that, as a University, we still have our own issues, and we are working hard to address these. Many of our Black students and staff feel isolation and discomfort as they experience daily microaggressions across campus.  We encourage students and staff to report any incident of racial harassment and seek support from us.  There is no place for racism at our University.

As the global coronavirus pandemic continues, we are also aware of evidence that Black people, as well as Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people, are at disproportionately higher risk of illness, death, and bereavement.  We are conscious that this places additional stress and burden on our community. We offer wellbeing and mental health support to all our staff and students including those affected by racism:

• Nilaari telephone counselling – this service is prioritising members of the BAME community who have recently lost a loved one (0117 952 5742; clare@nilaari.co.uk)
• Student Wellbeing Service
• Student support services
• Multifaith Chaplaincy
• Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing Support
• Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Staff Network
• Report and Support
• Samaritans phoneline which is open and free 24/7 (116 123; jo@samaritans.org) or use their app

To find out more about our activities to support our institutional commitment to race equality please see our Institutional Statement on Race Equality

This year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) celebrations at the University have been bigger and better than ever. I’m incredibly grateful to staff and students who’ve shared their personal experiences at IWD events across campus this week – your stories have been an inspiration to us all.

As a University, we’ve been working hard to improve gender equality. The University Strategy sets out an ambitious commitment to eradicate the gender pay gap in the professoriate, and we also set a target of increasing the percentage of female professors to 33 per cent by 2023. Since announcing these commitments in 2016 we’ve made real progress, with new initiatives to support women’s career development and a new academic promotions framework. We are on track to meet our 2023 targets. Our latest organisational Gender Pay Gap has reduced by 2.5% since 2017 and I’m particularly proud that we are the first UK University to issue a landmark Collective Agreement outlining the next key actions which will be taken to address the academic gender pay gap. All of our work in this area has earned us a shortlisting for the Guardian University Awards in the Staff Experience category.

The senior team is determined to address all areas of inequality across our University and create a level playing field for everybody, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity or cultural background. Acknowledging there is a problem is an important first step. We must also listen to and learn from fellow colleagues.

It was my pleasure this week to host Professor Olivette Otele and Dr Jane Khawaja for an International Women’s Day celebration of BAME women in Royal Fort House.

Both Olivette and Jane shared candid accounts of their lives and career progression to date. At times deeply poignant, with grace and good humour both women talked of the highs and lows (including racism and other forms of prejudice) they’ve experienced as BAME women pursuing a career in academia.

The need for perseverance was a common theme for overcoming the challenges they faced, as was the importance of celebrating and reflecting on success. However, both women were clear they would not have achieved their success without the support of a close network of family, friends, colleagues and (crucially) mentors.

With this in mind, I would encourage eligible colleagues to sign-up to our Bristol Women’s Mentoring Network. Here, female staff at grades K, L and M can receive mentoring support, advice and guidance from female colleagues in senior roles. It’s been wonderful to see the network already making a real difference to the progression of our female staff and I was particularly pleased that Professor Esther Crawley won South West Public Sector Mentor of the Year for her participation in the scheme. I look forward to seeing it continue to develop.

While we are making progress to tackle gender and racial inequality at Bristol, as a leadership team we recognise there’s still a long way to go. That’s why we’re examining our recruitment practices, our institutional cultures and our reward and recognition systems. We’ll also shortly be publishing our first-ever ethnicity pay gap report alongside our statutory gender pay gap report. While this isn’t yet required by law, we believe it’s the right thing to do to and it will help us understand and address the challenge head-on.

I’m confident that together we can bring an end to both gender and racial inequality at Bristol and I hope this year’s IWD provided an opportunity to both reflect on and celebrate all the incredible women in our university community – it certainly has for me.

By Professor Judith Squires, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost

Since I started my monthly series of events to mark the highest levels of academic achievement across the University, we have had no shortage of people and awards to celebrate – and November was no exception. For our latest Provost Celebration of Academic Achievement held on the 21 November, we celebrated the fantastic news of the £8.2 million renewal award received for the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) over the next five years from Wellcome and the Medical Research Council (MRC). This funding, along with University support, will enable ALSPAC to continue its vitally important international research into health, wellbeing and social science using data and samples collected from thousands of families at a key time in the lives, marking a whole series of life events which have often been understudied.

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