Update from Leroy | Race Equality Charter Co-ordinator

Since our last update the Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) Team has been working on our Race Equality Charter (REC) and at the end of 2021, introduced our Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment (RECSAT) Team to analyse its data.

Here’s more information about the Race Equality Charter and the work being done by the Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment Team:

What is the REC?

The Race Equality Charter (REC) is an AdvanceHE charter mark focussed at Higher Education (HE) institutions reflecting and tackling race inequality. It follows fairly similar principles to AthenaSWAN with the exception that its focus is ethnicity rather than gender. It asks us as an institution to set up a Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment Team (RECSAT).

What is RECSAT?

The Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment Team (RECSAT), is the committee involved in analysing our application, commenting and critiquing on data.

We established the RECSAT in December 2021 and since then it has had two full meetings and they have been discussing topics such as the University’s wider EDI work alongside how we go about fulfilling REC requirements.

Outcome from the RECSAT meetings

The RECSAT decided to continue to use the term racially minoritised in Kent. While we know that the term racially minoritised isn’t perfect, we all acknowledge the problems the term Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) brings, especially how it excludes some minoritised communities and homogenises others.

As set out in the Antiracism Strategy; racially minoritised is a term increasingly used in EDI work as an alternative to BAME as it highlights the social construction of racial categorisation. However, the term racially minoritised also has limitations:

• it could be perceived as passive and limiting in terms of individual agency
• it also risks homogenising the experience of individuals and communities who experience racism in different ways.

The term is used here fully aware of these limitations but in acknowledgement that there is no consensus on a new national preferred terminology as of yet.

Where we classify racially minoritised and we as an institution support racially minoritised individuals, there may be a mismatch in support from external providers and we are looking to see how we can do that effectively.

We would encourage staff and students to talk to RECSAT members so that thoughts and opinions can enhance meetings. We would ask however to respect that the individuals are students and full time staff and may also have a lot of things on their plate alongside the vital work they are doing in the REC.

One of the other key things that our RECSAT emphasised in their previous meetings, is the importance of making spaces and mechanisms with proper throughput of lived experiences of staff and students. Members stressed the importance of listening and discussing these things and not losing the spaces that provide them, as well as ensuring what’s heard is acted upon and taken up with feedback and progress.

Discussions of the things that come out of RECSAT meetings will form part of the REC action plan as well.

The EDI Team has been working on our REC application with the input of the RECSAT and staff around the institution.

How you can get involved

If you’re a group of staff, a student network, Divisional EDI team, a person who wants to know more, get involved or mention something to us, do get in touch.

There are some quick and easy things you can do:

• Have open discussions about EDI between yourselves and your Divisional/Departmental EDI teams. The more we talk, the more we can listen, the more we can improve. Those things can feed into the REC process and our EDI forum.
• Ensure you’ve got your demographic information complete as possible and up to date on StaffConnect. We need to ensure we have as complete a picture as possible when we do our work to make sure it has the widest impact.

There are resources in Kent and across the board that can help you get started, enhance what you know with some intersectionality in Kent:

• Antiracism Strategy (pdf) 
• Diversity Mark Toolkit – Tips to diversify your reading list
• EDI Resource Bank
• Disability Toolkits and Resources – Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity – University of Kent
• Race Equality Charter | Advance HE 

Progress on student demands

Throughout the REC and antiracism work we have been doing we are keeping a close eye on the student demands and what we can do to take more action on them.

Kent made its Antiracism Strategy in response to student demands as well as to incorporate the University’s commitment to being an antiracist institution. An action plan to that strategy is being made as part of our REC submission process to push the progress in a positive direction with meaningful accountability.

We are setting up a Harassment and Discrimination Prevention Group. The group will include staff and students and look at potentially being an independent panel having no senior management involved in the processes.

The excellent survey made by the BAME staff network is entering its next phase. Big shout out to the network co-chairs for the amazing piece of work they are continuing.

Other institutional progress

Kent has signed up to StellarHE Executive Development Programme for Diverse Leaders (BAME) in Higher Education. It is aimed at academic and professional staff aspiring to senior leadership positions in Higher Education and we have submitted our first round of staff to the programme.

The final day of Kent’s inaugural staff conference was marked by an important session on our university’s new Anti-racism strategy. GdM (DVC, EDI Lead and Kent’s Race Champion) hosted a staff discussion and Q&A, together with a panel of colleagues instrumental in the development of our strategy.

You can listen to a recording of the event.

Slides to accompany the event – Staff Conference anti-racism strategy slides

Key feedback from the session include:

*making sure that experiences and stories are incorporated into our anti-racism work (along with more quantitative forms of data).

*being as transparent as possible about what we are doing, so that we can get the most out of this living-breathing process and associated work plans.

In response to this feedback we will be continuing to update our Challenging Racism pages so that this can serve as one part of a broader suite of mechanisms for feedback and transparency in our work around EDI. We will also be looking to join up important insights from across the institution, including but not limited to the important experiential information and recommendations which have emerged from the BAME Staff Network’s survey and project.

To amplify work that is already happening across Kent in support of our approach to anti-racism, we’d also like to draw your attention to other key updates at this time:

*Inform Kent (InK) has changed to Report + Support. The Report + Support page can be found on the website. The page gives the option to give an anonymous report or a report with details that Ken can follow up on. In both cases your confidentiality will be respected in-line with our safeguarding policies. This page also collates all of the help and support pages into one, to increase access to the resources that may be most helpful to you at the time.

*The staff reporting tool can still be accessed via links found on the “Reporting Incidents” page.

Just a reminder that this reporting tool is for any sort of incident that occurs, irrespective of whether the incident involves another member of staff.

We hope that staff and students will feel encouraged to report incidents and that the experience of doing so feels helpful and supportive.  Where sufficient information is shared, we hope to enable effective, timely resolutions and support.  Your experience at Kent is important to us.  If for any reason you have concerns about reporting, do please speak to a Harassment Adviser or someone you trust within the institution, as we’d like to ensure you get the support you need.

14 July is International Nonbinary People’s Day, where we celebrate the contributions and resilience of nonbinary people worldwide. We also join with people around the world raise awareness of the issues faced by nonbinary people. Nonbinary people do not identify with the binary distinctions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’. In the UK, nonbinary people face poor mental health, physical harassment and ongoing discrimination.

To address this at Kent, we encourage you to engage with learning about the experiences of nonbinary people. The Stonewall “10 ways to step up as an Ally” highlights some steps that you can take as an individual to build an increasingly inclusive community at Kent. At Kent, our pronoun guide can help with creating an inclusive culture for everyone in our community. Our LGBT+ Staff network and student network are welcoming to all – the  Kent LGBT+ Staff Network blog has many resources, for both members of the community and allies, including a post wishing you a Happy International Nonbinary People’s Day!

We recognise there is more work to do in creating an inclusive community for nonbinary members of our community at Kent, and we encourage you to report incidents of harassment so that we can address systemic discriminations.

Throughout the day, stories written by nonbinary people will be shared on social media through the hashtags #internationalnonbinaryday and  #ThisIsWhatNonBinaryLooksLike – this is an opportunity to learn of the experience of nonbinary people and to amplify their voices.

From the Co-chairs of the BAME Staff Network:

Dear BAME Staff Network members and all University staff and students,

The BAME Staff Network wishes to express solidarity with all members of the Black staff and student university community, our local Black community in Canterbury and Medway, and our Black brothers and sisters across the nation in what has been a very upsetting and disturbing run of events following England’s defeat in the Euro 2020 final on Sunday. The racism to which the three marvellous England football team players, Bukayo Saka, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford, have been subjected to, is despicable – yet many people in the Black community have said, not surprising.  Indeed, many of them sadly predicted what unfolded, evidencing that we are still very much living in a society where racism is prevalent and where many Black members of our community continue to feel unfairly treated.

Yet again, we are reminded of how quickly the tide can turn when it comes to matters of race and how progress can be so seriously threatened – from Black Lives Matters, to unhindered and overt racism. There is so much more we as co-chairs can say, but for now we wish to acknowledge the deep hurt such abusive comments have caused to the players, their families and friends, and to all of our fellow Black citizens.

We wish to remind everyone of the policies against racism and harassment and the support services based at the university, should you feel the need to access these:

https://www.kent.ac.uk/hr-staffinformation/policies/dignity.html

https://www.kent.ac.uk/challenging-racism

https://www.kent.ac.uk/equality-diversity-inclusivity/harassment

https://www.kent.ac.uk/student-support

https://livekentac.sharepoint.com/sites/MentalHealthSupport

https://www.kent.ac.uk/equality-diversity-inclusivity/reporting-incidents

The events reaffirm the absolute need for us all to continue our discussions on race but more importantly, to take action at an individual and organisational level and have the courage to challenge any form of discrimination, overt or covert. Only through this collective action can we dismantle the structures which allow such behaviour to continue.

As the BAME Staff Network, we will certainly continue to engage in relevant discourses and action in coming months, and keep working towards dismantling systemic racism through our committed efforts as educators. If anyone wishes to contact the network co-chairs, even if it is simply to talk through how they feel about these events, please email bamestaffnetwork@kent.ac.uk and we will arrange a suitable time to talk with you.

Take care all,

Vanisha, Bridget, Barbara and Dave
Co-chairs of the BAME Staff Network

Last night’s BBC documentary Are Unis Racist highlighted powerful and deeply troubling examples of students experiencing systemic racism at universities across the country. We fully acknowledge the justified hurt and anger behind the issues raised in the programme, and we recognise that we, both as an institution and a wider sector, are institutionally racist and need to do more to tackle this. 

We know we have a significant role to play in ensuring that we challenge and deconstruct systemic racism and all forms of discrimination at the University and beyond. We will continue to address these issues at Kent, and encourage all members of our community to learn more about them so we can ensure we are a place where all individuals feel welcome, supported and proud of who we are. The resources put together on this by our BAME Staff Network  are available to everyone to further their understanding of their role in challenging racist behaviour and structures.  

We fully support our students and staff to report incidents of racism, harassment and discrimination.  Students can do this via our Inform Kent reporting tool which will ensure that you gain access to support available after any incident, with a separate formal process for staff.  

We also encourage anyone affected by the documentary to seek support from those around you, including contacting Student Support directly at any time via wellbeing@kent.ac.uk.  Staff are also encouraged to talk to their manager or a colleague, or to contact our Employee Assistance Programme.    

Find out more about Challenging Racism at Kent