1. Professor Kalwant Bhopal @KalwantBhopal
Challenging ‘excellence’ in higher education: racism, inclusion and White privilege
Professor Kalwant

2. Introduction Widening participation agenda (DfES, 1999/2000; 2003)
Equality Act (2010); Athena SWAN Charter (ASC); Race Equality Charter (ECU).
Gender given precedence; main beneficiaries of ASC white, middle class women (Bhopal, 2018).
Increase in BME students at HEIs (HESA, 2018); differences within and between BME category/groups; Black students seen the most growth (AdvanceHE, 2018).
Inequalities in HE continue to persist despite policy advances and changes in student body (Bhopal, 2018; Pilkington, 2013).

3. BME Students: degree attainment
White students (79.6%) were more likely to receive a first or 2:1 compared to BME students (66.0%).
Relatively high proportions of Chinese, Indian and mixed heritage students received a first. Black African, Black Caribbean and those from other backgrounds were less likely to receive a first or 2:1 (2016/17).
BME attainment gap of 13.6 percentage points (2016/17), with the gap particularly pronounced for Black African (24.9), Black Caribbean (20.8) and Black other (25.5) students.
BME attainment gap lower for Chinese (4.5 percentage points), Indian (5.1) and mixed heritage (5.0) students (AdvanceHE, 2018).

4. Inequality, inequality, inequality
BME students achieve good ‘A’ level grades compared to white students on average, differences within the category (HESA, 2018).
Less likely to be able to apply to selective universities such as Oxford or RG (Boliver, 2015; Bhopal, 2018).
Less likely to be offered places compared to white students with comparable ‘A’ level results (Shiner and Noden, 2015; Lammy, 2017 ‘social apartheid’).
BME students under-represented in prestigious, elite RG universities (ECU, 2017).
Black students more likely to drop out of university; ethnocentric curriculum and racism (UPP/SMF, 2018).

6. BME staff demographics: 2016-17
A higher proportion of BME staff (UK and non-UK) are on fixed-term contracts compared to White staff.
A larger proportion of White academic staff are on the highest pay spine (£59,400 or more) compared to UK BME staff.
UK BME staff are underrepresented at the highest contract level and over represented in the lowest; 91.6% professors are White compared to 8.4% BME total.
A higher proportion of BME staff (UK and non-UK) are on research only contracts compared to White staff (AdvanceHE, 2018).

7. Who benefits from (White) policy making?
Evidence of ‘excellence’ seen in adherence to inclusive policy and practice - ‘excellence’ is prescribed and charter marks are ‘badges’ of ‘excellence’.
‘Whites will advance the cause of racial justice only when doing so coincides with their own self-interest’ (Bell, 1980: 523).
‘…the continued promotion of policies and practices that are known to be racially divisive testifies to a tacit intentionality in the system’ (Gillborn, 2009: 65, my emphasis).
Whites are the main beneficiaries of educational policy making, even though they are designed to serve the marginalised; White women main beneficiaries of affirmative action (Ladson-Billings, 2000).
‘As long as White identity and White privilege are not threatened, White groups are supportive of diversity and inclusion programmes such as affirmative action/REC’ (Bhopal, 2018: 102).

8. White space, White privilege
White space, ‘Whiteness is a normative identity in which power and privilege are translated by controlling dominant values and institutions and in particular by occupying space within a segregated landscape’ (Kobayashi and Peake, 2000: 393).
‘…the meaning of race varies from location to location, but it also depends on the set of concerns against which it is prioritised and the other forms of consciousness or modes of reading with which it is ranked and arranged’ (Hartigan, 1999: 188).
‘Higher education institutions are spaces of White privilege which fail to cater for the experiences of BME groups. They employ a rhetoric of inclusion, but one that is rarely evidenced in practice or outcomes’ (Bhopal, 2018: 103).

9. White ‘excellence’
‘Whiteness in higher education operates as form of legitimacy in which Whites maintain their positon of advantage by defending the legitimacy of the system that has led to their advantageous position within it – White groups privilege their individual rights over others’ (Bhopal, 2018: 102).
‘Excellence’ is defined as white excellence; the belief in a meritocracy, inclusive policy making and ‘diversity’ (Bhopal, 2018).
‘Universities continue to play their part in the reproduction and reinforcement of racial and class hierarchies through their rhetoric of ‘inclusion’ – sold as ‘excellence’ – they can sell themselves as diverse and fair as long as their white privilege remains intact and unthreatened’ (Bhopal, 2018: 103).

10. Ways forward? A redefinition of ‘excellence’?
Does excellence = inclusion?
‘Excellence’ must be part of a social justice agenda which should be at the heart of our mission in higher education;
To reflect diversity from a global and international perspective and
To benefit staff, students and the whole academic community.