Report of the Academic Board Working Group on Racism and Prejudice
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ACADEMIC BOARD – 16 December 2020 Paper 2-13 Report of the Academic Board Working Group on Racism and Prejudice Summary of Paper The report of the Working Group established by Academic Board in December 2019 [AB Minute 26, 2019-20] Prior consideration None. Action required of Academic Board AB is invited to adopt the report and to endorse its recommendations. Author / proponent Working Group on Racism and Prejudice A Special Meeting of Academic Board was held on 12 December 2019 in response to a requisition calling for the establishment of a Working Group ‘to advise on racism and prejudice that would investigate the proposed adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism and its consistency with/inconsistency with Academic Freedom at UCL’. Academic Board resolved at that meeting to set up a Working Group ‘to report to the Board so that it may advise Council on the matter of group-specific definitions of racism.’ Elections to the Working Group were accordingly held and the Working Group began its work in February 2020. The report of the Working Group is attached. UCL Academic Board Working Group on Racism and Prejudice December 2020 Table of Contents Page Acknowledgements 2 I. Executive Summary 3 II. Scope and Aims of the Working Group 7 III. Pluralism and Antisemitism at UCL 10 A) The Legacy of Pluralism at UCL 10 B) Antisemitism at UCL 11 IV. Policies, Procedures, and the Legal Context for Combatting Racism and Prejudice at UCL 15 A) Legislative Framework 15 B) UCL Policies and Procedures 17 C) Academic Freedom at UCL 22 D) Questions Arising 24 V. The IHRA Definition of Antisemitism: An Appropriate Remedy? 28 A) The IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism 28 B) Implications of UCL’s Adoption of the IHRA Working Definition 31 C) Questions for Academic Board to Consider 34 D) Advocates of the IHRA Working Definition 37 E) Critics of the IHRA Working Definition 43 F) The IHRA Working Definition: Its Effect on Academic Freedom and Free Speech 50 G) The Equality Act and Antisemitism 52 H) Defining Islamophobia 55 I) Alternative Definitions 56 J) The Efficacy of Adopting Definitions 59 VI. Conclusions and Working Group Recommendations 60 Appendices 69 A) Timeline: The Road to IHRA Adoption at UCL 70 B) Case Studies 79 C) Additional Legal Context and UCL Policies 85 D) Academic Board and Council Documents 96 E) UCLU Jewish Society Survey Information 151 F) Letters from UK Government Ministers on the IHRA 152 1 Acknowledgements We would like to thank the following members of the UCL community for joining relevant meetings and contributing to our discussions: Hiba Aouicha, Wendy Appleby (Registrar), Shabeer Ashraf, Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC (Visiting Professor of Law), Samuel Goldstone, Amina Harrath, Oliver Kingsley, Fiona McClement (Director of EDI), Abigail Smith (Senior Policy Advisor, OVPA), Faris Tamimi, and Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu (Provost’s Envoy for Race Equality). For further advice and feedback during the drafting stages, we would also like to thank Professor David Feldman (Director, Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, Birkbeck), Professor Amos Goldberg (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Professor Anthony Julius, Dr. Brian Klug (Oxford), Professor Colm O'Cinneide, Professor Lena Salaymeh (Oxford), Professor Philippe Sands QC, Professor Sacha Stern, and Dr. Yair Wallach (SOAS). The committee alone is responsible for the research and drafting of the report. It has been a privilege to chair this Working Group and to learn from many colleagues at UCL and beyond in preparing this report, which has been jointly researched, authored, and deliberated by all members of the Working Group: Dr Celia Caulcott, Vice-Provost (Enterprise) Professor Tamar Garb, Department of History of Art Professor François Guesnet, Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies Aatikah Malik, Welfare & International Officer, Students’ Union UCL Sandra Ogundele, BME Officer, Students’ Union UCL Dr Farid Panjwani, Centre for the Study of Education in Muslim Contexts Professor Prince Saprai, Faculty of Laws Professor Alan Sokal, Department of Mathematics Professor Judith Suissa, Institute of Education Sean Wallis, English and UCU Branch President A special note of gratitude to Nick McGhee, Senior Assistant Registrar (Casework and Governance) of Student and Registry Services at UCL, for his exceptional work and guidance as secretary of the Working Group. Dr. Seth Anziska, Associate Professor of Jewish-Muslim Relations Chair, Academic Board Working Group on Racism and Prejudice December 2020 2 I. Executive Summary UCL’s Academic Board Working Group on Racism and Prejudice was formally established by a vote of the Academic Board (AB) on 12 December 2019, in the wake of UCL Council’s November 2019 decision to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. In a series of regular committee meetings, interviews with staff and students, careful examination of a wide range of source material and secondary literature, consultation with outside experts, and extensive drafting between March and November 2020, the Working Group has produced this report for Academic Board’s full consideration. Despite a proud history of UCL’s institutional pluralism and commitment to free thinking, as well as extensive institutional measures in place to combat discrimination and harassment, there is disturbing evidence that incidents of antisemitism have persisted in our university. The existence of discrimination within an institution is severely demoralizing for those who experience it, and adversely affects the entire community. How seriously we are committed to tackling prejudicial behaviour and educating ourselves about the dangers of discrimination remains the mark of our ability to thrive as a diverse and robust community of learners, researchers, teachers and administrators. Were a student or staff member to experience antisemitic harassment or discrimination and not believe their experience will be taken seriously, it would be a systematic failure of our duty of care and of our foundational egalitarian values as a university. Our report examines the extensive policies and procedures at UCL that are in place to combat racism and prejudice, as well as the UK legal context that underpins and enforces these policies. We found a wide range of mechanisms that offer legal protection against antisemitism and other forms of racism and prejudice within our institution. A central issue, we concluded, was less with the policies than with their implementation. The gap between policies and procedural enforcement is a result of (a) insufficient reporting, possibly due to a belief that the existing mechanisms are either too confusing or not taken seriously; and (b) a lack of awareness about what antisemitism is and why it is a problem. On the former, we seek to clarify and elucidate the policies and legal protections already in place, as well as recommend ways to improve understanding of procedures for complaints about antisemitic harassment. As for the educational and awareness aspect (a problem that extends far beyond UCL and is characteristic of society as a whole), we recommend educational measures that recognize antisemitism as a complex societal phenomenon and clarify how it might manifest itself in the UCL community. We also emphasize the need for greater clarity in distinguishing between anti-Jewish prejudice and political debate over Israel and Palestine, examining pedagogical tools for clarifying these distinctions in a university. One such initiative, across the world, to delineate how antisemitism functions has been the adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. Many governments, sporting clubs, associations and local councils have adopted this particular definition in recent months. Here in the UK, successive government ministers have requested university chancellors adopt the working definition, and most recently, the Secretary of State for Education has advised all 3 universities who have not yet adopted it to do so by the end of 2020. For its advocates, adoption of this working definition would make it easier to understand what antisemitism is, how it functions, and how to report it, and thereby, identify those in breach for disciplinary sanctions. In this context, as our detailed timeline of decision-making within UCL indicates, the UCLU Jewish Society, members of SMT, and supportive staff and students as well as advocates of the IHRA within AB encouraged Council’s move to adopt the working definition as official UCL policy in 2019. This was not, however, a decision endorsed or advised by AB as a whole, and substantive resistance was demonstrated in a letter signed by over forty academics as well as robust debate at AB meetings. Nor was it negotiated with the recognized trade union for academic staff, Universities and Colleges Union (UCU), despite it potentially being used in disciplinary cases. The bulk of our report examines the efficacy of the IHRA working definition, both in terms of its educational value and as a proscriptive tool for identifying antisemitism at universities and ensuring effective institutional reporting and enforcement. We have studied this document with great care and taken advice from a range of experts as to its efficacy and adoptability as well as acquainted ourselves with the lengthy literature it has generated. In the process we have identified a major concern in the conflation of the adoption of a special definition with the actual institutional combatting of antisemitism