Promoting good relations on campus: a guide for higher and further education

Aimed at senior managers, equality practitioners and those leading direct services to students and staff, this guidance aims to support higher education institutions and colleges to develop and improve their long-term strategies for good relations work.

It provides a framework for developing practical solutions to occurrences of hate crime or intolerance on campus by outlining good principles of practice that institutions should consider in their individual context and on a case-by-case basis.

This guidance builds on and replaces previous publications Promoting good campus relations: dealing with hate crime and intolerance (UniversitiesUK/ECU/SCOP, 2005) and Promoting good campus relations: an institutional imperative (ECU, 2007).

It updates changes to the law, refreshes previous examples and adds new case studies to provide a comprehensive toolkit.

Areas covered include:

• Challenges to good relations on campus: includes definitions of hate crimes and incidents, examples of manifestations and other challenges to good relations.
• Tackling intolerance and promoting good relations: includes immediate crisis intervention, medium-term anticipatory action and long-term preventative action.
• Comprehensive case studies and scenarios covering external speakers, lawful speech, protests, individual and group behaviour, students’ unions, banning groups, displaying literature.
• A legal responsibilities checklist for activities that might impact on good relations, including questions to consider and actions to mitigate any negative impact.

“The key principle for dealing with hate crimes and intolerance on campus is to understand that all staff and students have the right to work, study and live without fear of intimidation, harassment and threatening and violent behaviour.

The key ingredient for the preservation of academic freedom is tolerance and respect for diversity.”

Introduction, Promoting good relations on campus