Race Justice Strategy

Foreword

The Goldsmiths community has a long history of engaging in anti-racist work, with our staff, students and alumni rightly proud of their progressive achievements.

However, we must never become complacent over this vital issue and must always look to push ourselves to be at the forefront of addressing racism and its impact on our communities. In 2019, we were given the message from our students that as an institution we needed to do better and end a collective inaction on racial injustice.

The impact of the 137-day occupation of Deptford Town Hall by Goldsmiths Anti-Racist Action (GARA) cannot be underestimated. It stopped the College in its tracks, bringing the experiences of our Black, PoC and ethnic minority students and staff to the fore. It was the intervention required to bring our community together to have difficult but necessary conversations about racial injustice at Goldsmiths. And it set in in motion the groundwork for the strategy we are sharing here.

That work has mostly taken place in our Race Justice Strategy Board – a remarkable group of people who have come together from across the College over many months to bring about positive change. At the heart of this strategy is a recognition that institutional racism is baked into the structures of our institution and has been left unchallenged for too long. Dismantling those structures is difficult, but possible. Whatever our role at Goldsmiths, we have a responsibility to act.

As an institution with strong civic roots, this responsibility extends to our wider community, too. Our home borough of Lewisham is the second most diverse borough in London, with two out of every five residents from a Black or minority ethnic background. With the Battle of Lewisham in 1977 a clear landmark, the borough has long been an epicentre for anti-racist campaigning and the cultural influence of the area’s Black African and Caribbean diaspora communities is clear at every turn.

More than a document, this strategy is a vision for the future of Goldsmiths. It will help the College to look forward, to a future where we not only address these critical issues locally but where I hope we can play an influential role in tackling the blight of institutional racism across higher education.

Professor Frances Corner OBE (she/hers)
Warden of Goldsmiths, University of London
Co-Chair of the Goldsmiths Race Justice Strategy Board

As an external consultant working on anti-racism and wider social equity, I was attracted to Co-Chairing the Goldsmiths Race Justice Strategy Board and supporting the development of the Race Justice Strategy because this important work is being directly shaped by the College’s own community.

GARA’s action and input, and that of Goldsmiths students and staff, have co-created this Race Justice Strategy; a strategy that isn’t content to hide, generic and light behind terms like ‘equality’ but which actually names and centres Race work as Justice work. In a sea of EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) initiatives, this caught my eye and stirred my passion.

Racism and racial inequity are baked into our wider culture and Higher Education - and in each of us as individuals. There’s a long, hard road ahead to persevere towards racial justice but I do feel hopeful that if we continue to centre the voices of students and staff and engage the Goldsmiths community, we can work together towards racial justice and wide equity.

Mx Natalia-Nana Lester-Bush (they / she)
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Consultant and Facilitator
Co-Chair of the Goldsmiths Race Justice Strategy Board

January 2023

Vision

To create a multicultural, world-class educational experience that engages and prepares all students to positively contribute to an anti-racist global society.

The Race Justice Strategy addresses institutional barriers to race equality and implements the principles of the Race Justice Strategic Framework.

The Strategy has been developed following the identification of systemic and interpersonal drivers of discrimination within the Insider Outsider Report and Identity and Impact Report, and through analysis of staff and student data.

Staff, students and members of Goldsmiths Anti-Racist Action (GARA) have directly shaped the Strategy through consultation as we seek to co-create a culture of inclusion and anti-racism at Goldsmiths.

The identified drivers of discrimination have been reframed as objectives with key deliverables to ensure they are directly addressed and uprooted.

The strategy is underpinned by a set of principles to ensure a joined-up approach, to guide and inform our actions as we work towards our strategic objectives.

Principle 1: Partnership working

To achieve sustainable and meaningful change, interventions will be conceived, designed, delivered, and evaluated through partnership and dialogue between strategic and operational leads, and stakeholders. Partnership working requires an infrastructure to ensure regular dialogue, and that this can happen through the Race Justice Strategy Board and Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment Team. Partnership working will ensure the allocation of resources to redress, enact justice, open-up and create opportunities for staff of colour. Partnership working will also ensure all staff responsibility in taking anti-racist action.

Principle 2: Disrupting and decolonising the institution

Reduce the extent to which the ideas, systems, frameworks, policies, processes, programs, practices, relationships, structures, and communications rewards privilege and advantages the careers and student experience of the white majority, reproducing inequities in access, opportunity, perceived deservedness, legitimacy, and safety for racially minoritised students, staff and members of the local community.

Principle 3: Preventing discrimination

Manage and mitigate the impact of bias and stereotypes, bullying, harassment, and discrimination by taking asset model approaches.

Principle 4: Recognising and positively respond to diversity

Improve our understanding of intersectionality and our ability to relate to qualities, characteristics and experiences that are different from our own and outside the groups to which we belong.

Enact reparations by redistributing opportunity and resource. Use resources to redress, enact justice, open-up and create opportunities for staff and students of colour and local community members.

Strategic objectives

1. Close the ethnicity pay gap and gender pay gap

2. Close the awarding gap

3. Create a culture of psychological safety, belonging and anti-racism

4. Develop a decolonised, accessible, and culturally cognisant multicultural curriculum including life-long learning and short courses

5. Develop equitable relationships with students, staff and local people of colour-led community organisations and communities

6. Develop inclusive attraction, admissions, teaching and learning and assessment practices

7. Develop inclusive attraction, recruitment, onboarding and exiting practices

8. Ensure clear accountability for racial justice at all levels of the College

9. Equalise career progression and delivery of research and innovation for staff of colour

Workstreams

To enable the delivery of the Strategy, workstreams have been established to ensure strategic oversight and accountability, with senior leadership at the forefront.

Workstreams will coordinate the delivery of the Strategy, with each workstream being aligned to a Strategic Theme of the Race Justice Strategic Framework.

Workstream memberships are comprised of senior staff with responsibility for leading on specific objectives and student and staff stakeholders.

Strategic Leads have been identified based on their role in leading a key objective and will be invited to report back to the Race Justice Strategy Board on progress and impact each term.

Targets, monitoring and review

The deliverables of this strategy will form the basis of Goldsmiths Race Equality Charter Action Plan. As part of the Race Equality Charter we will collect further data through the REC Survey which will further inform the Strategy. The REC Survey will also capture additional baseline data that is not already captured in our existing data collection and reporting.

College-wide KPIs have been established to monitor progress in tackling the following indictors of inequality:

1. The underrepresentation of people of colour in academic and senior professional and support roles

2. Differential outcomes for students of colour across key points of the student journey (student recruitment, retention, degree classifications and graduate destinations)

3. Hostility and a lack of support, experienced by students and staff of colour manifesting in discrimination and harassment

As part of the Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment process, we will undertake a detailed analysis of staff and student data:

• Carry out College-wide survey of staff and students (REC) to better understand the experiences of staff and students, to measure the impact of racial justice interventions and to identify future priorities

• Undertake an analysis of each stage of the student experience, from admissions through to graduate destinations. Set quantitative targets for measuring progress in tackling inequalities

• Undertake an analysis of each stage of the employee life cycle, including representation of staff of colour at each grade. Set quantitative targets for measuring progress in tackling inequalities

• Consult with students to understand how some learning environments can negatively affect students of colour, understand how students participate and are expected to participate in group discussions how students respond to different learning and teaching styles