When Arun Verma, editor of Anti-Racism in Higher Education, put out a call on social media for Black, Asian and ethnic minority people within academic institutions to join him for an online workshop about racism in higher education, he had no idea how overwhelming the response would be.
“I ran two workshops, one for Black, Asian and ethnic minority attendees only and one with a broader audience. For both I had 100– 150 people turning up,” says Arun. “What started as an idea to gather first-person stories of racism within higher education for a white paper quickly became something much larger. From the first sessions I had expressions of interest and support from over 90 people. Of that group, over 20 people were eager to write and share their experiences. Within six months I had a full book manuscript.”
Influencing diversity and inclusion debate
The impact since publication of the book in June 2022 has been equally overwhelming, influencing the entire debate around diversity and inclusion across the UK in HE. “The feedback on the ground is phenomenal. People are already using the book to inform their institutional strategy,” says Arun.
Staff Development Officer at Central Saint Martins, George Barker, says: “For me, Arun’s book has brought into light the necessity for a whole systems approach to anti-racist work in higher education. In my role, this means looking beyond metrics like recruitment, complaints monitoring or take-up of training, to instead focus on how we can better centre an honest, whole community-led approach to change and action. It’s been a fantastic resource and source of inspiration for the difficult, necessary work that is to follow.”
Partnership and Engagement Manager at the University of Birmingham, Peter Collins, says it was a delight to welcome Arun to the university to talk about the book: “Arun’s powerful and popular talk gave us the opportunity to continue educating a wide range of people about the issues at play, and help us upskill institutional change makers to move our organisational culture in the right direction.”
At a talk at the Open University, the event host said Anti-Racism in Higher Education was their book club book. They were working through the book, using Arun’s reflexive questions to guide their thinking in their academic roles.
Race Equality Charter Project Lead at the Open University, Temitayo Owoka, says: “The Anti-Racism in Higher Education book is an essential guide for framing how anti-racism can and must work in higher education.” For her, the numerous first-hand accounts of racially minoritised staff and students’ challenging experiences within higher education amplifies the call to address the perennial problem and fully demonstrates the impact of racialised inequity within academia. “The questions at the end of each chapter challenge us to become critically reflexive thinkers towards personal and institutional biases, policies and practices, [which is necessary] in order to become truly antiracist,” says Temitayo.
Working with Policy Press
Once Arun realised the stories he was gathering had to be a book, he started looking for a Black-owned academic publisher – which at the time proved impossible. From there his criteria was to find a publisher with an understanding of empowerment and ideally, a not-for-profit organisation: “That’s how I came across Policy Press. They were the first publisher I’d reached out to and to be honest I was expecting a rejection, that they would think it was a crazy idea. But instantly Commissioning Editor Laura Vickers-Rendall said yes, we’d like to take that!”
The structure of the book created by Arun remained unaltered by the press, though Arun found the feedback and in particular the peer review process useful in the later stages of the publication process: “Some chapters I wrote myself, but what was interesting was the amount of energy that came from the contributing authors. I am grateful that they shared these incredible stories; some are powerful, some sad. I wasn’t expecting the level of storytelling,” says Arun. “Many are difficult to read but it was important we got those in there to bring these issues to life in some way. This was really an ode to the community of people as well. I didn’t want it to be overly academic. I wanted students to be involved, and I wanted professional and support services staff to be involved.”
Bringing the book to life
Arun’s focus now is on bringing life to the book in person. This includes accepting invitations as keynote speaker to events within the UK and beyond. Arun was the keynote speaker for Radboud University in the Netherlands at their anti-racism event in autumn 2022, as well as a speaker at the opening of work undertaken by the University of Galway on their Race, Equality Strategy and Action Plan.
Arun is writing articles on the subject for publications such as the Times Higher Education as well as working on the Universities UK Tackling Racial Harassment report, helping the Office for Students and Research England increase Black and minority ethnic access into research pipelines and being part of an Advisory Group for the University of Surrey. The work goes on, because it must.
Beyond the book
In the immediate future Arun is keen to return to gathering stories from the higher education community. This time he is asking people to get in touch with their stories about how they are using the book. This is part of a campaign to collate these stories and relay them back to the university sector and relevant governing bodies.
Through these stories, Arun hopes to demonstrate not only the vast enthusiasm and energy behind making funding change within academic institutions as expressed by the people who work there and of which they are formed, but also to offer this book as part of the roadmap of how change can begin to be made at a practical and hands-on level.
If you have a story you would like to share with Arun, please do get in touch with him here.
Arun Verma is a leader in integrating intersectionality and race equality action in design and development throughout the higher education, third and public sectors both nationally and globally. Rebecca Megson-Smith is a writer and writing coach, founder of Ridley Writes.
Anti-Racism in Higher Education edited by Arun Verma is available to order here for £19.99.
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The views and opinions expressed on this blog site are solely those of the original blog post authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Policy Press and/or any/all contributors to this site.
Image Credit: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo via Alamy