Published 18 October 2021 by the Higher Education Authority (HEA)

The Higher Education Authority (HEA) today published its new report Race Equality in the Higher Education Sector, authored by Dr Marta Kempny and Dr Lucy Michael. This report captures, for the first time, quantitative and qualitative data on the race and ethnicity of higher education staff as well as their experiences at work.

The report is based on a survey taken by over 3000 staff in higher education institutions across Ireland during December and January. The aim of the survey was to capture the lived experience of HEI staff in relation to race equality. Participants described their experiences of reporting abuse, stereotyping, and at times, the lack of recognition for their work.

Key findings include:

• More than one-third (35%) of minority ethnic third-level education staff say they have been subjected to racial or ethnic discrimination on campus.
• Less than half of minority ethnic staff are on full-time contracts, compared to 38% of white Irish and 25% white other not on full time contracts.
• Just over 17% of minority ethnic staff earn over €75,000, compared to 38% of white Irish and 25% of white other
• Some 71% said they feel they are treated equally by their colleagues, irrespective of their background
• 69% said they are treated equally by students, irrespective of their background
• Few white staff have reported experiencing racial or ethnic discrimination, but all groups reported witnessing racial or ethnic discrimination against minority ethnic staff
• More than half of respondents (52%) said they had never seen or heard the use of racist language on campus or online, while 27% said they rarely have seen such instances. However, staff across all ethnic groups described witnessing racial or ethnic discrimination against ethnic minority staff.

Recommendations are made in 8 key areas:

1. Leadership
2. Supporting Diversity in Staffing
3. Making Race/Equality Policies Transparent
4. Reporting Mechanisms
5. Awareness and Training
6. Fostering Diversity in HEIs
7. Supporting Diversity in Student Recruitment
8. Data Collection

The findings are potentially significant for colleges on a financial basis, given that future research funding for colleges will be influenced by progress on equality. In particular it will help us to understand and address the institutional policies, processes and practices which embed and reproduce inequalities between staff of different backgrounds.

In this way the HEA report is also an important educational resource in highlighting the fact that racism is not just about overtly racist actions, such as racial harassment and hate crime, which unfortunately are still a problem in our society.

Dr Ross Woods, the Senior Manager of the HEA Centre of Excellence for Equality, Diversity and inclusion, said: “Now that we have an evidence base, the HEA can work with institutions to prevent rather than react to problems in this area and to keep pace with wider demographic changes in Irish society.”

The full report is available at: https://hea.ie/2021/10/18/first-ever-race-equality-survey-shows-opportunities-exist-for-higher-education-institutions-to-lead-on-tackling-discrimination/

Dr Lucy Michael, report co-author, appeared on RTE Morning Ireland to launch the report. You can listen back at:

“Is racial discrimination a problem in our third level institutions?”, RTE Radio 1. Available at: https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22018627/

The report also featured on the front pages of the Irish Times, Irish Independent and Examiner. If you’ve missed the publications around the HEA Report and the responses to it, you can find some of the major headlines below:

• “Ethnic minorities in higher education more likely to be on lower pay”, The Irish Times. Available at: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/ethnic-minorities-in-higher-education-more-likely-to-be-on-lower-pay-1.4703011
• “Minority ethnic university staff struggle with racial stereotyping and lack of recognition for work”, Irish Examiner. Available at: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40723287.html
• “Third of minority ethnic university staff subjected to racial discrimination on campus”, Irish Examiner. Available at: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40723338.html
• “Ethnic minority staff face discrimination on campus”, RTE. Available at: https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/1018/1254321-race-equality-third-level/

The Irish Universities Association has welcomed the publication of the report.

“IUA welcomes publication of HEA Report on Race Equality in Higher Education as universities roll out ‘Let’s Talk About Race in the Higher Education Sector’”, Irish Universities Association. Available at: https://www.iua.ie/press-releases/18-10-21-iua-welcomes-publication-of-hea-report-on-race-equality-in-higher-education-as-universities-roll-out-lets-talk-about-race-in-the-higher-education-sector/ 

 

 

If you’ve missed the series of publications written for the ARK Research Centre of Queens University Belfast and Ulster University, you can review the most recent reports on attitudes to ethnic minorities, migrants and refugees here.

• A video of the Black Lives Matters? Attitudes to minorities and migrants in Northern Ireland webinar held on 27 January 2021 is available. The speaker was Lucy Michael, and Raquel McKee (African and Caribbean Support Organisation for Northern Ireland) gave a response.
• Attitudes to migrant workers in Northern Ireland: an improving landscape? (Research Update 131) and video by Lucy Michael

• A welcoming Northern Ireland? Understanding sentiment towards asylum seekers and refugees by Lucy Michael and Paula Devine (Research Update 124) is based on data from the 2017 Life and Times and Young LIfe and Times surveys.
• Attitudes to minority ethnic groups in Northern Ireland, 2005-2016 by Paula Devine (Research Update 122) focuses on Life and Times data from 2005 to 2016.
• Racism and intolerance towards minority ethnic groups in Northern Ireland by Lucy Michael (Research Update 112) is based on data from the 2015 Life and Times Survey.

We are delighted to have Dr Marta Kempny working with us on a new project on race equality in higher education this month. Dr Kempny, an anthropologist from Poland and Northern Ireland, previously worked with us on the UN CERD Civil Society Report in 2019, and on refugee integration research, and we are excited to have her collaboration on this new project.

You can read a recent blog by Marta on the impact of Covid-19 on migrants in Northern Ireland – Contesting lockdown: Backlash to globalisation and right-wing movements

Her latest research, Migrant Lives, Presents and Futures, which aimed to raise awareness about migrant lives in Northern Ireland, particularly in the context of insecurities around Brexit and the pandemic, was recently featured on a podcast. Listen here.

We are compiling a Know Your Rights guide for international protection applicants to be published by ICCL and the Irish Refugee Council.

The Guide explains rights within the protection process, under the EU Reception Directive, and a range of broader rights that apply to everyone in Ireland, including civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights such as the right to protest, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, the right not to be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, the right to education and the right to earn a livelihood.

We would like to hear from asylum seekers, refugees or anyone working with international protection applicants on the contents of the Guide. You can get in touch with us at enquiries@lucymichael.ie

Join a focus group – we are running a series of focus group discussions with international protection applicants in May. Join a discussion by emailing enquiries@lucymichael.ie

Download information about the Guide and our focus groups here

INAR launch their newest report (by Lucy Michael) today with analysis of 700 reports of racist incidents submitted in 2020 to iReport.ie . The iReport.ie racist incident recording system has been designed to allow comparison with international patterns and to facilitate understandings of racism which are particular to the Irish context.

Based on the data collected through iReport.ie INAR regularly produces Reports of Racism in Ireland. We have been conducting similar analysis for these reports since 2013. Questions are designed to capture a large amount of detail about racist incidents, including information about where, when and how the incident occurred as well as details about victim(s) and perpetrator(s). The system also captures information about why the incident has been perceived as racist, its impact on the victim and/or witnesses, and the interplay with age, gender, sexuality and disability.

See the 2020 report and more reports at https://inar.ie/ireport-reports-of-racism-in-ireland/

The 2020 Data headlines:

• More people reported racism in Ireland to http://iReport.ie in the last year than ever before.  
• People reported the same high rate of racist assaults in 2020 as in the previous year, despite the lockdown. 
• 11% of all incidents resulted in physical injuries. Ten people were hospitalised urgently. Twenty-one people suffered head or facial injuries. 
• Psychological impacts and social isolation resulting from racist abuse and violence have more than doubled. 
• People have been forced to leave jobs and move homes because of racist violence against them.  
• Reports of criminal offences, hate speech and graffiti increased last year. 
• Reports of illegal discrimination and racial profiling by Gardai were also up. 
• And there has been a significant increase in hate speech by extremist groups. 

We are very excited to announce that Dr Niloufar Omidi, already engaged with us on the ICCL Know Your Rights project, will join us full-time from Monday 18 March.

Dr Omidi holds a PhD in International Human Rights Law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law, National University of Ireland, Galway. Her doctoral thesis, “Peoples’ Right to Peace: Enforcement through International Law Instruments”, laid a legal-philosophical groundwork for the realisation of the right to peace as one of the essential prerequisites for a democratic and equitable international order. She also holds an LL.M. in International Law and has conducted research into international arbitration and completed international arbitration training courses with a focus on the Iran-US Claims Tribunal. Niloufar has taught modules such as “International Human Rights Law for Advocates & Activists”, “Peace Studies”, “Islam & Human Rights” and “International Environmental Law”. She has also supervised postgraduate research in Public Advocacy and Activism at the Huston School of Film & Digital Media, NUI Galway.

Following her doctoral work, she expanded her research on a right to peace beyond ‘the absence of war’ to the right to live in an inclusive, just, and peaceful society (also known as the right to positive peace). She has conducted extensive socio-legal research on minority issues as a way to promote inclusive societies. She worked as a Community Development Worker at the Galway Traveller Movement (GTM) and authored three policy position papers on the right to education, the right to health, and the right to mental health to address the existing inequality and discrimination against this ethnic minority group in Ireland. She has also carried out analytical research on minorities’ cultural rights in Iran. Niloufar has most recently been working on our project team, drafting a clear and accessible Know Your Rights guide for international protection applicants in Ireland to be published by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the Irish Refugee Council.

We are thrilled to have her expertise on board full-time, and look forward to introducing her to you through the year.

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Bray for Love will host an official launch of their Harbour Bar mural, taking place online on Sunday, March 24 at 4 p.m.

The launch marks International day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

They will formally launch the Bray for Love mural painted by Holly Pereira and have some discussions on racism and challenging racism.

Speakers include Emer O’Neill, Anne Waithiera Burke, Dr Lucy Michael, Aideen Roche, Tina Maphakela and Holly Pereira.

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/braypeople/news/bray-for-love-to-launch-new-mural-40204325.html

I was honoured to be asked to give the keynote speech at the launch today of a new Race Equality Guide for Employers produced by DCU Centre of Excellence for Diversity and Inclusion @DCU_DI

This Guide puts the voices of underrepresented people right at the heart of what it does, and that was a very good reason for me to support its launch! I haven’t been involved in its production at all – that credit entirely goes to the team at DCU led by Sandra Healy, to the Race Equality Forum and its partners, and to Linda Keitasha.

You can find the Guide here: http://bit.ly/38SNk8h – a recording of the event will be made available soon too.

Keynote Address

I’m very honoured to be here to launch this Guide today, and thank you for inviting me. The Race Equality Guide is not only necessary, but it is an excellent example of good practice in supporting as well as encouraging progressive race equality measures.

I have been 17 years in this area of work, working with national and regional government, international organisations, private and public sector groups, migrants and ethnic minority people from a wide range of groups. There are 3 key things I have learned about making progress on race equality:

1. There is no one-size-fits-all answer. Racism adapts to local contexts and structures. Every country and every sector has to develop good practice and share it for real progress to be made.
2. Race equality has to become part of our way of doing things. It is not a time-limited project, and it is not finished, because we are undoing centuries of barrier-building and undoing them in a world which does often not want to acknowledge those barriers exist at all. 
3. There is a reason that Black and Ethnic Minority people are 5 times more likely to identify racism in the workplace than their colleagues. Not only do white employers and employees not experience racism in the majority, we don’t naturally see it either. We have to be prepared to view our institutions and practices in the workplace as more likely to perpetrate racism than not, and approach that problem openly and determinedly. And we have to be prepared to champion that work in a wide range of forums.

Thank you to all of the team in the DCU Centre of Excellence and the Race Equality Forum behind this Guide and the incredible work that has gone into it in the last months. The importance of this tool is not just in what it sets out to do in, but also in what it acknowledges:

• A highly stratified labour market
• Job precarity, financial precarity, and reduced choice in the labour market
• And it draws on lived experiences of those in the labour market who have been affected by those barriers. It highlights the necessity of working in partnership with those with lived experience in order to understand and breakdown those barriers.

It is very important to say that this work is not optional – our society depends upon it, our business sectors depend upon it, our employers depend upon it. Yet too often it’s painted as an extra. Race equality in work is not something we can do, or should do, its something we MUST do. There are hard truths about segregation in the Irish labour market which have to be faced. There are legal protections for employees from racial discrimination, but too often discrimination is so embedded into the structures and practices of the labour market here that they cannot be unpicked and identified as single cases of discrimination. Our problem is not just conscious bias, or even unconscious bias, it’s the very structures we have built in order to do business. And the fact is that those structures do not have to discriminate for us to be effective in business. Rather, they are often shaped by a historic legacy which is not fit for the current world of work.

The segregation which currently exists in the Irish labour market is a series of barriers which are preventing workers from taking up jobs for which they are qualified – sometimes overqualified – and experienced, and preventing employers from benefiting from the wide pool of talent available in this country. We can think too not only of ensuring we get full access to our currently qualified pool of applicants, but of accessing tomorrow’s talent and ensuring employers can access them early and fully for maximum development opportunities.

Work is – I think it is widely acknowledged – first amongst equals in both measures and means of integration. Not only in terms of entry to the labour market but also in pay, promotion, income security, and working conditions. Integration is not a one-stage project for newcomers either, it is an ongoing project for the whole of a society, because our world changes every day, to ensure that all groups have opportunities to contribute and to benefit. The world of work offers us opportunities for stability, for respect, for social status, and for social relationships – all of these are crucial to an equitable society.  

For this reason, I am also really pleased to welcome the establishment of the Race Advisory Council. This is partnership in practice, and it’s something we hopefully we see a lot more of in future. I wish you the very best for your work, and I know that the discussions that you have will be enormously useful in extending the work started here.

I started by saying that we have to view our institutions and practices in the workplace as more likely to perpetrate racism than not, and approach that problem openly and determinedly. One of the things that has most impressed me in this Guide is the way in which it encourages and supports employers to practice authenticity and openness in their approach to race equality work. It is this which, for me, enables us to move beyond race equality as a ‘fix’ towards race equality as a mode of doing business.

Once again, congratulations to the DCU Centre of Excellence and to your Race Advisory Council for the production of this new Race Equality Guide, and many best wishes for the future work to follow. Beir bua agus beannacht libh go léir.