I was pleased to be asked to chair the group working on ‘Tackling the Underrepresentation of Ethnic Diversity in the Workplace’ and to work with hugely committed and talented colleagues from universities, colleges and the third sector. My motivation to tackle racism came from my multi-cultural family and growing up in west London in a neighbourhood of families from many nationalities and religions. I remember being shocked, aged 9, to go to someone’s house for tea and hearing the family making openly racist comments about their neighbours; such talk would not be tolerated by my liberal parents and this was my first realisation that racist talk was normal for some people. I grew up thinking that multi-culturalism was widespread and it wasn’t until I moved out of London in my late 20’s that I found that many communities were not as mixed as I was used to. It was quite a surprise to find that in parts of the UK most people were white and my interest in tackling discrimination grew, fuelled by having black friends who were stopped by the police regularly and Asian friends who had Anglicised their names, as my Jewish family had done in 1939.
My passion for EDI has been a constant throughout my career, particularly improving diversity of the workforce through creative recruitment. This has been an ongoing goal and is far from easy to attain. There is no single answer and organisations have to implement a range of actions and be patient as changing culture takes time. Gradual improvements, measured annually, will lead to sustained change. Culture needs to change as complacency exists in most organisations and thinking that racism isn’t an issue at work because there aren’t any complaints about it does not reflect the reality of life for many people. As Reni Eddo-Lodge says in her brilliant book ‘Why I’m No Longer to White People About Race’, ‘discrimination plus power equals racism’ and colleges and universities have a long way to go. I have been proud to work with so many passionate people during this project and I hope that this report supports you in eliminating racism in your organisation through improving inclusive recruitment practices. I’d like to thank colleagues Yasmeen Hussain, Mia Liyanage and, most of all, Dr Nighet Riaz, who has always been there to support us and whose creativity and organisation kept us on track and enabled us to achieve our goals.