In Video 1, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right (2023), Asif Sadiq, a senior executive at Adidas, focuses on a critique of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training in corporate and institutional spaces.
He argues that, despite the investments, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training do not produce meaningful change. This failure, he continues, is the result the of training content which reproduces the dominant cultural perspectives, delivers single stories, prioritise specific areas, fall into generalisations and stereotyping, and mostly, focuses on the challenges and negative aspects of diversity experiences instead of the benefits and potentials. Up to here, despite the wide generalisations, I followed his argument without much trouble. My alarm was raised when, after these observations, Asif Sadiq concludes that the responsibility to get educated, to create a fair space to talk about differences and produce transformative changes, lies with the individual, not the institutions.
For me, it is this responsibility-shift, from institution to individual, which is very troubling. While it is unclear whether Asif Sadiq, a man of colour, was aware of the pervasive mechanisms of the neoliberal discourse of his responsibility-shift proposal, in Video 2, Revealed: The charity turning UK universities woke (2022), Professor James Orr, a white British academic from Cambridge University, clearly uses shifts and inversions with great dexterity and awareness to argue that, at Cambridge University, there is no evidence of the perpetuation of institutional racism. And, to build his argument, he presents a series of conversations where he uses the visible diversity of the interviewees to validate his opinion.
His critique is aimed at the Advance HE frameworks for gender and race equality which, he claims, preach a vision of society rejected by the “general public” and push a particularly ideological line about “white fragility or about how we’re all racists”. Advance HE frameworks when applied by the institution in the form of training or admissions, he continues, become ideological mandates which produce “diversity bureaucracies” that can jeopardise academic freedom and teaching excellence.
I searched online for an official public statement or a comment from the University of Cambridge responding to the The Telegraph‘s video by Professor James Orr and I found nothing. Is this silence what Cambridge University understands as freedom of speech?
While I am quite critical of UAL’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion mandatory trainings which feel like box ticking exercises, applications of the Advance HE frameworks in spaces such as the PgCert Academic Practice are examples of initiatives where the institution provides a safe space to talk about differences, share experiences and where individuals can fulfil their responsibility as learners.
I am sure that the PgCert graduates will promote meaningful changes in their practices and in their spaces of sovereignty at an individual level – mine is a vertical design studio in the CSM BA Architecture. However, at institutional level, UAL is playing the same responsibility-shift game. Lecturers, technicians, librarians and frontline staff, many on precarious contracts like mine (hourly paid lecturer) and reduced teaching hours, are offered to take volunteering “learning hours” (PgCert) and charged with the institutional responsibility to fulfil UAL’s commitment to social justice.
I wonder how far UAL can still push this responsibility-shift game. I wonder how far I will go on playing it.
References:
Video 1 – with Asif Sadiq:
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right. (2023) YouTube video, added by TEDx [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4wz1b54hw
Video 2 – with Professor James Orr:
Revealed: The charity turning UK universities woke. (2022) YouTube video, added by The Telegraph [Online]. Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRM6vOPTjuU
One of my most frustrating moments at UAL this academic year was when I had to do the mandated Anti-Racism training in which we were presented with a model of discrimination that was “individual/cultural/structural”.
Magically, by replacing institutional with culturally there was absolutely no space in the session to discuss UAL practices as institutionally racist. Cultural was framed as actions by groups, such as if a group of colleagues celebrated with a christmas party instead of a holiday celebration (I kid you not). So basically for UAL, racism is something that individuals do, that small groups of individuals do, or a large structural problem. UAL itself is super fine. Completely sorted.
Every attempt of a staff member to raise actual racist institutional issues was dismissed as “this not being the right context to discuss them”. The learnings? After a couple of hours that felt like painful endless days, members of staff repeated as we went around a circle how they had learned (1) Never touch someone’s hair without asking (even if you really want to? Yes, even if you really really want to – obviously questioning why you wanted and would assume you are entitled to was not an appropriate thing to discuss), and (2) You can only ask where someone is from once, then you have to let go (but what if you really really really want to know? Suck it up – why would you feel entitled to interrogate someone you don’t know after they refused? Also not an appropriate thing to discuss).
I can’t wait to do it again in a couple of years when UAL decides it needs to show some work on EDI again.
So I have a lot less hope than you Fernanda. I think UAL and Cambridge are a lot closer in those issues that we would like to admit.
This is a comment in response to both your post and Andrea’s comment:
I’ve written and deleted many replies, it’s hard to know where to begin. Yes, UAL may be no better than Cambridge, and in some respects, it might even be worse. But is there any institution that genuinely stands out as better? And how would we even begin to measure that?
Maybe one way is by looking at how supported and content staff feel, not just students. That’s often a telling indicator of an institution’s real values.
If universities claim to be inclusive but consistently fail to follow through, isn’t that a form of diversity washing? We talk a lot about greenwashing; it’s been exposed, criticised, and challenged. But has diversity washing gained the same attention? Have any higher education institutions actually been held accountable for it?
No training session works for everyone, and as Andrea described, some are shockingly bad. But also, not every reference or resource will land the same way with everyone. Have you looked at the comments under those YouTube videos that were referenced? The range of opinions is as broad and varied as the people watching them.
Sometimes calling things out is necessary. But constant finger-pointing rarely leads to meaningful solutions.
So maybe instead of focusing only on what UAL is getting wrong, the more useful question is: what could it be doing better? What would meaningful change around racism and inclusion actually look like? I have a suggestion: more time and space for open discussions on this issue, with colleagues and students. And a clear way to feed the feedback in (to management)), so it is heard, considered, and acted on.
Yes Maja … I think this is the key question:
“What would meaningful change around racism and inclusion actually look like at UAL?”
And I agree with you. Our satisfaction as teaching staff is a very good measure, but also not a straight forward one. I can tell you about the many ways I feel discriminated and exploited by UAL, but also how much I have a sense of belonging, I feel supported and feel my work is appreciated.
I teach in another institution where discrimination feels different because it is an open and active toxic environment. I do not have a sense of belonging there, and my work is continuously undermined by the institution regardless of student satisfaction or results. But I get better paid (fairly paid).
What is more schizophrenic or abusive?
I 100% agree with you in regards to Asif Sadiq commentary “to create a fair space to talk about differences and produce transformative changes, lies with the individual, not the institutions”. I believe the individual has been doing this, for a very very long time and it’s the institutions that either ignore issues raised or has created a framework that covers the very basics to an important societal issue, and thats it. These frameworks are these tick boxes that mandatory training has set out.
UAL has unfortunately, in my opinion, been more performative than actually taking action on D.E.I issues. From not challenging the 2021 Sewell Report, to its unsatisfactory stance on Israel – Palestine issue, from cutting hours and funding a new building that will have more students and less space, I do wonder what is UAL actual position on anything.
If anything the PgCert has me looking at UAL and it’s action rather than the individual. Obviously the individual is important too haha.