Policy Statement on Promoting Race Equality

We are fully committed to the promotion of equality and our commitment is strengthened by this specific policy on race equality.

We aim to: 

• promote equality of opportunity and eliminate unlawful racial discrimination across all areas of the University's activity, including:
  • Admission and access
  • Student achievement and assessment
  • Student guidance and support
  • Teaching and learning
  • Curriculum
  • Staff recruitment, professional development and support
  • Partnership and community links
  • Procurement and outsourcing
  • Quality assurance
  • College residential and trading activities
  • Estates management
• Promote good relations between different racial groups in our University community. 

Racial Harrassment 

Racial harassment is defined as occurring when someone's actions or words, based on race, religion, colour, ethnic or national origins, are unwelcome and violate another person's dignity or create an environment that is intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive.  Examples may include: oral or physical abuse, derogatory comments and/or jokes, written abuse including graffiti, the display of offensive material and different treatment.

We expect each individual within the University community to show respect for others irrespective of their culture, ethnic or religious background, to report incidents of racism to an appropriate person and to be prepared to act as a witness for any racist incident that they may experience. 

The University aims to meet the specific duties of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 by 

1. Assessing the impact of our policies, including our race equality policy, on students of different racial groups by collection and analysis of student data
2. Monitoring by reference to those racial groups, the admission and progress of students by subject groupings
3. Analysing  the data to identify any barriers to progression and take steps to remove such barriers
4. Publishing our policy statement and the results of our assessment and monitoring under (1) and (2) on an annual basis in our Diversity Annual Report, and on our Diversity WWW site
5. Consulting with the University's Diversity and Equality Advisory Group, Diversity Network, Trade Unions, Durham Students' Union and other stakeholders, including the local community.

We will draw up an annual action plan linked to our Diversity Strategy to help us to achieve the above aims.  

To meet our specific duty on employment we will:

• collect ethnic monitoring data in relation to employees on recruitment, training and promotion
• analyse the data to find any patterns of inequality
• take necessary action to remove barriers and promote equality of opportunity
• publish the results of the monitoring each year.

We will monitor and assess the policy's effectiveness on an annual basis.