When I first read the UAL anti-racism action plan, especially the bit that says “increase representation of BAME academic staff by 15%” and “by 50% at Grade 7” (UAL, 2021), I didn’t feel reassured. I felt anxious. I started to question myself: Was I employed because I’m good at what I do, or was it to help the numbers look better? I support the idea of equity and increasing representation, of course I do, but this way of framing it made me feel like a statistic, not a person.
Asif Sadiq’s TED Talk (2023) put words to something I’d been struggling to explain. He says, “It’s easy to count people, but it’s hard to make people count.” That really hit home. Sometimes inclusion feels more like performance, something that looks good on paper, but doesn’t actually shift who is being listened to or who feels like they belong. It reminded me of another point he made, about how all the case studies and resources he saw while studying business were about the successful people who didn’t look like him. That example stayed with me. It mirrors what I sometimes feel in my own academic journey, like I’m not the person these spaces were originally built for.
Bradbury (2020) deepens this point using Critical Race Theory. She explains how policy, even when it claims to be neutral, often centres whiteness as the default. She writes that “representation is necessary but not sufficient” and argues that without shifting power, policies risk turning people of colour into symbols of institutional success instead of truly including them. That resonated. Sometimes being visible feels like being under a spotlight rather than being supported.
On Monday, in our group discussion in the workshop 3, we spoke about this too. We questioned where these percentages in the action plan came from, and who decides them. We also talked about the way data is collected, how we’re not always told why our identity data is being used, or how. That can feel invasive and a bit performative, especially when you’re not sure if it’s helping or just another tick box. We also questioned the term “BAME”—how it groups so many different people together and ends up creating a binary between “white” and “everyone else.”
I’m not saying the action plan is bad. It’s a step. But if we want real change, the approach has to go deeper. Garrett (2024) talks about how racialised PhD students often can’t picture a future in academia because the system hasn’t shown them one. That really stayed with me, because representation on paper doesn’t always translate into real support, real listening, or a real sense of belonging.
One thing our group suggested was making data collection more transparent, clearly explaining how it’s used, and why, and building it into a two-way conversation. Because anti-racism shouldn’t feel like something happening to us—it should feel like something we’re actively shaping together.
Reference:
Bradbury, A., 2020. A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England. Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp.241–260.
Garrett, R., 2024. Racism shapes careers: Career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, pp.1–15.
Sadiq, A., 2023. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right. TEDx Talks , 2 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4wz1b54hw [Accessed 4 June 2025].
University of the Arts London (UAL), 2021. UAL Anti-racism Action Plan Summary. London: UAL.