‘What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy? It means that only the most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable’… ‘For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own games, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.’ (Audrey Lorde 2007: 110–112: Comments at Second Sex Conference, New York, September 29, 1979)
This book grew out of the seminar series Aiming Higher: Race Inequality and Diversity in the Academy , initiated and convened by UK ’s foremost race-relations think-tank, the Runnymede Trust . The outcome, the Aiming Higher report (Alexander and Arday 2015) centred around two main and interlinked areas of concern for Black and Minority Ethnic staff and students in the British higher education system; namely the white privilege that lies at the heart of the elite institutional culture, and the subsequent unequal opportunities and outcomes for BME1 academics and students who ‘strive to survive’ within that culture.
The findings of the Runnymede report were indeed alarming. The evidence they unearthed of complex entrenched institutionalised gendered and classed racial discrimination in British universities speaks for itself. The Aiming Higher research team found students of colour are less likely to be admitted to elite ‘Russell group ’ universities , even when they have ‘like for like’ entry grades. BME students are to be found mainly in the ‘new’ university sector with its lesser market value, and are less likely than their White counterparts to be awarded a good honours degree or find good jobs commensurate with their qualifications when they graduate. Those who manage to navigate the perilous journey into a career in the Academy disproportionately find themselves on insecure fixed term contracts and lower pay. The most shocking evidence of this ‘crisis of race’ in British higher education , is the dearth of senior Black and Minority Ethnic academics. In comparison to 3895 white female and 12,455 white male professors in the UK , there only 345 British women of colour professors of which 30 are Black British, 10 British Pakistani and 5 British Bangladeshi, with British Indian and British Chinese women topping the race to the bottom at 80 and 75 respectively (Alexander 2017; ECU 2016; Gabriel and Tate 2017). Emejulu (2017b) poignantly sums up the state of play in the British Academy when she says, ‘To speak of universities is to recognise them as spaces of exclusion and discrimination which hide their epistemic violence behind a rhetoric of meritocracy, collegiality and the ‘free exchange of ideas’’.
David Lammy, the former Labour Minister of Higher Education commented in the Forward to the Aiming Higher report, ‘So despite the lofty ideals of universities , they do no better, and are in fact doing worse than many other institutions in British society when it comes to race equality ’ (Alexander and Arday 2015: 3). Lammy then throws down the gauntlet to the Academy , declaring, ‘What then, can be done?’ As politically committed academics of colour, we could not let Lammy’s challenge lie, and pick up his gauntlet by bringing together 22 of the best and brightest, new and established scholars of race and higher education to tackle this question in this unique Volume. This book thus takes up the task the Runnymede began, and Audrey Lorde in her eminent and forceful wisdom in her opening quote counsels us to do—that is to ‘dismantle the masters house’ of higher education . It is a forensic task, that comes at a pivotal time marking just over 50 years since the 1965 Race-Relations Act addressed the endemic racism that plagued post-war Britain (Khan 2015a). In terms of higher education reform, it also signals 50 years since the Robbins Report called for the national expansion of the university system which opened the door to a post-colonial generation of Black and Asian British students from the former colonies (Alexander and Arday 2015). Drawing on the contributing authors’ meticulous evidence of facts and figures on one hand, and their rich archives of feelings and frustrations on the other, the book clearly demonstrates that indeed something has to give if, as Martin Luther King prophesied 50 years ago, and Sam Cooke immortalised in his civil rights song, ‘A Change is Gonna Come’.
If British higher education is to move beyond its twentieth century bunker of anachronistic elitism and social hierarchies of privilege and modernise as ‘fit for purpose’, it must embrace a new era of democratisation and diversity that will ultimately define its success in the new global reach of the twenty first century (Morley 2012). The over-riding message of this Collection is clear—despite the massification and marketisation of higher education , in which universities are reconstituted as international ‘big businesses’ (Collini 2017), the ‘masters tools’ of race equality and diversity polices have not ‘dismantled the masters’ house’ (Warikoo 2016). Instead, we find the latest tranche of ‘fat cat’2 leadership in the Academy have erected new ‘walls of containment’ for Black, Asian and White working classes in their expensive new architectural extensions. But like all ‘walls of exclusion ’ forged in fear, envy and greed—the walls of Apartheid , the Berlin Wall, the walls in Gaza and Trump’s Mexican walls—they outlive their time and eventually, under mass protest, crumble.
The incontrovertible evidence amassed in this book heralds an eve of change in the search for social justice and racial equality in higher education . By peeling back the mechanisms of institutional racism ; exposing the spaces of white privilege ; documenting the grassroots movement for decolonisation: and illuminating the bureaucratic conceit of equality and diversity policies —we suggest, in the pages that follow, that the ‘game is up’ and there is nowhere for those in power to hide.
Let the Facts Speak: Institutional Racism in Higher Education
Institutional racism , a concept coined in America in 1967 in the Black Power era by Kwame Ture (né Stokely Carmichael) and Charles V. Hamilton is, like the Race Equality Legislation in Britain, now marking its 50th anniversary. However, it was not until the racist murder of the Black teenager Stephen Lawrence3 in 1993 that the concept of Institutional racism entered the lexicon of higher education in Britain. Stephen’s brutal murder marked a watershed in the recognition that public sector organisations, including higher education , operate institutional forms of racism that are, “less overt, far more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts … (and) originate in the operation of established and respected forces in society” (Carmichael and Hamilton 1967: 4). The raft of recommendations that followed the Macpherson Report into Stephen’s murder led to the 2000 Race Relations Amendment Act (RRAA) and later the 2010 Race Equality Act, which marked a hopeful start to a new millennium (Khan 2015a). In a breath of fresh air, higher education had to take on board the definition of institutional racism in the Macpherson Report , defined as, “The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.” (Macpherson 1999: para 6.34). Tasked by the law, universities were now accountable and open to external scrutiny and had no choice but to reluctantly invoke the principles equality of opportunity and abide by the ‘Positive Duty’ to promote and value difference and diversity in their hallowed halls. However, as the seminal book, Institutional Racism in Higher education (Law et al. 2004: 3) shows so well, British universities still managed to remain ‘hideously white’.
It is this watershed moment, and the subsequent fate of institutional race equality within the sector during the following 20 years, that Andrew Pilkington skilfully unravels in his opening chapter, ‘The Declining Salience of Race Equality in Higher Education ’ (see Chapter 2). He asks, ‘Why, despite such progressive Race Equality Legislation , have we witnessed the rise, rather than the fall of disadvantages for BME students and staff?’ He suggests that the underlying principles of equality enshrined in anti-discrimination Law elicits a liberal rather than radical approach to equalities, ensuring fair procedures for all, rather than fair outcomes and equitable redistribution for those who are the most discriminated against. By adopting ‘colour-blind ’ and ‘complacent’ bureaucratic approaches, universities can claim to be doing something, while really doing nothing at all to change the status-quo. With endemic cultures of cynicism about ‘political correctness’ towards race equality , Pilkington concludes the situation facing us in universities is, ‘impossible to comprehend without recognising how deep...