Universities must help make a world where George Floyds can flourish

Last Thursday, 25 May, marked the third anniversary of the death of George Floyd.

But perhaps we should begin the story back in December 1865, when the 13th amendment to the US constitution was formally adopted. The amendment, in effect, put beyond legal challenge the abolition of slavery, seven months after the end of the Civil War and eight months after the assassination of the amendment’s champion, Abraham Lincoln.

The 13th amendment and Lincoln’s preceding Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 changed the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans, granting freedom to people such as Hillery Thomas Stewart.

Hillery spent the first eight years of his life enslaved in North Carolina, working tobacco fields. As a free man, he built up personal wealth and accumulated more than 500 acres of land. But although enslavement might have been outlawed, state and local laws continued to enforce racial segregation, and his land was ultimately seized by white farmers. His descendants became sharecroppers. And his great-great-grandson, George Floyd, became famous across the US and around the world when he died in 2020 with a white policeman’s knee on his neck.

Of course, racist brutality is not unique to the US. Last month, 22 April, marked the 30th anniversary of the murder of the black schoolboy Stephen Lawrence while he was waiting for a bus in south-east London. His white assailants were quickly identified but delays in arresting them and searching their homes meant that the Crown Prosecution Service declared there was insufficient evidence for an initial prosecution.  

The complex legal case that ensued, and subsequent analysis of the case, revealed the impact of centuries of racism within our institutions. The Macpherson Report, published in 1999, labelled the Metropolitan Police Service “institutionally racist” and cited numerous fundamental errors, including a failure to give Stephen first aid, to follow obvious leads and to arrest suspects. 

I was honoured to attend Stephen’s memorial service last month and it had a profound impact on me – more than anything because of how little has changed in the intervening years. His community, family and their supporters are still asking for the same thing they looked for all those years ago: justice for Stephen, an end to racism and institutions that work for everyone, regardless of their skin colour.

We know that at an early age George Floyd had talked about wanting to be a Supreme Court justice, and Stephen Lawrence wanted to be an architect. Imagine a world where this had been possible. What positive impact might they have had? What contributions might they have made to the world?

The higher education sector has an important role to play in bringing that world into being. Universities are driven by the transformative impact of unlocking human value and potential, enriching our society and helping people to lead fulfilling lives. Yet racism and discrimination within universities themselves undermine their pursuit of this mission. Hence, eradicating it is one of the most important challenges for the sector. 

Yet universities have sometimes come under attack for trying to do so. In June 2022, England’s then further and higher education minister, Michelle Donelan, wrote to vice-chancellors asking us to reconsider signing up to Advance HE’s Race Equality Charter – a scheme set up to help universities identify and address the barriers facing black, Asian and minority ethnic staff and students.

The fact that a government minister should seek to discourage universities from taking such important steps is a stark reminder of how difficult it can be to tackle racial discrimination. But we at Buckinghamshire New University chose not to heed Ms Donelan’s request. Indeed, our work on the charter – of which we have been a member since 2019 – will receive new impetus this year.

For example, we are championing Buckinghamshire’s Stop Hate UK helpline and raising awareness of the 75th anniversary of the 1948 voyage of the HMT Empire Windrush, the ship that brought the first post-war West Indian immigrants to the UK. And we are working with local charity SV2G (St Vincent and the 2nd Generation) to support High Wycombe’s community of people from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the largest in the UK.

We will also continue to unpick our curriculum to ensure our students and staff receive a rich, challenging and diverse experience, one that is anti-racist and which embeds a culture of inclusion and equity.

We will work with our students, staff and local community to instigate conversations that help us understand what we can do to dismantle racism and discrimination inside and outside our own organisation. And we will continue to play our part in sharing best practice within the higher education sector, as we did when we became the first university to create a definition of Islamophobia last year.

If all institutions take actions similar to ours, we can together begin to build a lasting and appropriate memorial to George Floyd, Stephen Lawrence and the many others who have suffered similarly tragic fates: a memorial of hope and change.  

Nick Braisby is vice-chancellor of Buckinghamshire New University.