FIGHTING FOR student rights and racial equality is so important to us. From our personal experiences, anecdotes we’ve heard and well-documented incidents, we know that racism still exists in higher education. We have grown weary of empty statements of support and solidarity. The blatant silence from some higher education instututions (HEI’s) on the topic of racism is also telling.

We were both the first Black Student Union (SU) Presidents in our SU’s. Ceewhy was the first black president at Salford SU and Osaro was the first black woman to be president and the first black two-term president at Hull University Students’ Union. Representation matters!

We want to see decisive action

Race Equality Now

Our identity meant we could do and see things that many people who came before us could not. However, those characteristics also meant that we were subjected to racism and discrimination that others were not. We experienced racism from colleagues and students – both verbally and physically.

A seat at the table

People and organisations often talk about valuing diversity. Sadly, when the time comes to take meaningful action against racism, these same organisations hesitate, delay and eventually drop the ball.

There is often a strong element of wilful complacency when dealing with these matters. Both of us have raised race issues to people in university senior leadership positions and watched them avoid taking full responsibility – although they have a legal obligation under Section 22 of the 1994 Education Act.

This can be devastating for the person on the receiving end. Not only can it impact your mental and physical health, it can leave you feeling that your lived experiences are invalid. It can make you feel that you don’t matter, because you are unprotected in the university space. This is how we have felt in the past, and we are still dealing with the effects of our experiences.

We’ve felt so helpless at times. We both occupied senior positions on our campuses, and yet we were sidelined. This left us unable to protect other students and ourselves from racism.

The current system is just not working for students and staff.

Race Equality Now

It shouldn’t be this way, especially given that many universities have signed up to the Race Equality Charter to show their commitment to tackling racism. Many of those same universities posted black squares following Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020. However, very little has changed nearly one year on.

As part of our Race Equality Now campaign we have heard from many students about their experience of racism in the pandemic. The current system is just not working for students and staff.

Drastic change is needed now

What we want to see following our campaign is decisive action. We believe that it is vitally important to construct a strategic political agenda to press home the need for radical and urgent changes to improve the experiences of black students and staff.

The changes we seek will challenge racism and tackle inequality in higher education institutions across the country. It is our contribution to changing the narrative and being the catalysts and agents of change.

To press home our demands, we have made several attempts to contact Advance HE (Higher Eduction), who are custodians of the Race Equality Charter. They have met up with us once.

Though they have been less than enthusiastic, we have continued to press them to collaborate with us. We have asked them the necessary questions, and we have not received adequate responses though they have set up a Race Equality Charter Governance Committee, which is a strong step in the right direction.

As we launch stage two of the campaign, we have received support from national organisations such as the National Union of Students (NUS), Operation Black Vote (OBV) and other black organisations. We believe that this issue should be a top priority for the government and have written to prime minister with support from black organisations.

We are calling on more higher education institutions and organisations to step up, support this campaign and tackle this issue alongside us.