The Heart of Whiteness: Racial gesture politics, equity and higher education

This chapter considers how, despite legislation, policies and expressed commitment to ‘equality and diversity’, racial inequalities (such as the Black-white degree attainment gap and the low number of Professors of colour) are able to persist in UK higher education institutions. Drawing on composite examples from empirical research, personal communications from colleagues in the UK and overseas and, my experience advising on race equality, I posit that institutional directives to address race inequalities often fail to engage seriously with the fundamental aspects of race and racism. Instead, it is argued that universities tend to embrace a range of limited short-term strategies and initiatives, which give the appearance of serious engagement but, in effect, make little substantial, long-term difference to the experiences, outcomes and success of students and faculty of colour. The chapter closes by considering how these groups might work toward a humanizing, successful existence within spaces characterized by this contradiction.