The Race Relations Act 1976, as amended by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, makes it unlawful to discriminate against anyone on grounds of race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origin. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 places a positive General Duty on all HEIs to promote race equality. This means that HEIs, in all their identified relevant functions, have due regard to the need to:
This responsibility and all the other relative Specific Duties arising from the legislation, lie with individual HEIs as autonomous institutions. As such, individual HEIs are legally answerable (through their governing bodies) for their fulfilment of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 requirements, both in relation to the General and Specific Duties.
It applies to:
Briefly, HEIs should have addressed the following:
In order to comply with the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, Higher and Further Education institutions must:
The equal opportunities administrators in your institution, should have already drafted and put the race equality policy into place. Although we are able to provide a summary of some of the main provisions of the amended Act we are not able to provide a definitive guide to the law.
For further information on this and related matters, please see:
An institution should be aware that racist incidents ranging from harassment and abuse to physical violence are offences under criminal law. The incitement of racial hatred and the publication and dissemination of materials such as leaflets and newspapers that are likely to incite racial hatred are also criminal offences. If anyone in a HEI has a complaint with respect to any of these criminal matters they should be reported to the police.
Material in the media that is deemed to be racially offensive contravenes media codes of practice, complaints about material of this nature can be made to the Press Complaints Commission or the Broadcasting Standards Commission. Complaints about racially offensive advertisements should be made to the Advertising Standards Authority.