Our anti-racism statement

Anti-racism is an active and conscious effort to work against all aspects of overt and systemic racism.

We recognise that racism goes beyond conscious or open hostility towards individuals or communities because of their culture, colour, nationality, race or ethnic background. Racism can be subtle and unconscious. To truly tackle racism we need to understand the role we all play.

An opportunity to learn

We encourage our community to take advantage of resources that explain different experiences and how we can support one another:

• Let's educate ourselves provides materials on topics like race, privilege, and the positive impact of inclusion
• Race Equity e-learning (login required) available to staff, covering racism and equality in UK Higher Education, different forms of racism, understanding privilege and a toolkit for belonging
• Our Active Bystander guide explains how to safely challenge problematic behaviour

Racism must be fought by everyone.

Our actions to create a safe and inclusive campus

While there has been a strong commitment to create a fair and equal society, racism and racial inequalities still exist in our everyday lives. This also perpetuates within higher education, and we must acknowledge our own institutional shortcomings.

We recognise that members of our community have experienced racism on campus, and we have worked with the Students’ Union in taking steps to ensure staff and student safety including: 

• Increasing campus safety patrols
• Working closely with North Yorkshire Police to investigate incidences of race hate
• Raising concerns at the highest levels, meeting with civic leaders and York MPs to discuss work on tackling hate crime and discrimination

Our community can share concerns, find support and report issues through the Staff Race Equality Forum, student networks and our Report + Support platform.

Throughout the year, we celebrate the rich diversity of identities and cultures within our community through events, activities, and celebrations held both on campus and across the city. These moments offer opportunities to learn from one another, honour different traditions and strengthen the sense of belonging that defines our shared university experience.

Reflecting our values

By embracing and adopting an anti-racism approach we are consciously structuring our activities to reflect our values and actions to address our systemic barriers to race equality. This requires solidarity, bravery and honesty in recognising that there remains much to do, and we must work collectively to listen to experiences and take action together to tackle these inequalities.

We share our values with our community through Respect at York with the aim of creating an inclusive and safe environment where we tackle prejudice and discrimination head on.

We are conscious of the structural inequalities intrinsic in UK Higher Education. To address this, we have implemented support for students and staff from diverse backgrounds. Examples of this support for students include widening participation programmes like Black Access and the University of Opportunity. For staff and PG researchers, we have offered initiatives like the Yorkshire Consortium for Equity in Doctoral Education (YCEDE) and the Equity in Leadership programme.