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  9. Colleges and universities to be 'named and shamed' for failing to tackle discrimination

Colleges and universities to be 'named and shamed' for failing to tackle discrimination

28 May 2008

Lecturers have agreed to 'name and shame' any universities and colleges which fail to implement anti-discrimination law.

And the Human Rights and Equality Commission will be pressed to serve compliance notices on the worst offenders and see they are prosecuted if they do not comply satisfactorily with the legislation.

The plan was agreed by members of UCU in the first vote at their annual Congress today in Manchester. Lecturers noted 'the poor progress made by many colleges and universities in writing race, gender and disability equality schemes and action plans, monitoring their implementation and updating them'.

Black and minority ethnic community members are under-represented in senior positions in colleges. Of over 300 colleges only eight have a black Principal, and less than 6% of senior and middle managers are black.

The Race Relations Amendment Act (RRAA) places a general duty on listed public authorities to have due regard  in everything they do  to:

  • eliminate unlawful racial discrimination
  • promote equality of opportunity
  • promote good relations between people of different racial groups.

Specific duties include the preparation of a written race equality policy (REP),  an assessment of the impact of this policy on students and staff from different racial groups, and the publishing of  the results of assessment and monitoring.

But monitoring conducted in 2006-7 by UCU and the former Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) in a sample of fifty colleges revealed that not one organisation had managed to fulfil all these duties. It was hoped that examples of good practice would be found but many had not made even the most basic arrangements for compliance with the duty, though this has since improved.

UCU considers progress to be unacceptably slow.

Lecturers today criticised the Human Rights and Equality Commission for its unwillingness to force colleges to comply with legislation - part of the Commission's function. UCU has asked the Commission to issue a compliance order on one college but the Commission declined.

The Commission is instead reporting offending employers to the (DIUS) ministry, a procedure UCU members consider inadequate.

Another of the non-complying colleges, confident it understood the legal duties, has been trying to promote its own Equality Impact Assessment Guidance to other colleges, but this guidance is considered to be in breach of the statutory framework of the RRAA.

During the debate today, Sasha Callaghan, president-elect of UCU said: 'Non-compliant colleges and universities are breaking the law every day. We have been patient on this until now but it is 18 months since the legislation was put on the statute book - long enough for institutions to act.'

Last updated: 14 December 2015

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