Yomi Adegoke - Slay In Your Lane

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‘I have written eleven books, but each time I think, “Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.”’

Maya Angelou

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There is no one conclusive reason why black students are less likely to attend elite universities, just as there’s no single reason why we get lower grades, but racists will assure us it’s because we’re undeserving, lazy or simply not smart enough. They complain that the places meant for equally talented white students are being ‘taken up’ by black students, despite the stats clearly stating otherwise. Imposter Syndrome often eats away at even the most talented of students, as they internalise these slurs and feel as though they’re ‘taking up space’.

Once you are at uni, it’s important to remember you have earned your place – not at anyone else’s expense but against odds that actually make it more difficult for you to be there in the first place. Afua Hirsch summarises this perfectly:

‘My grandfather was a son of a cocoa farmer in the village in Ghana and he got a scholarship to Cambridge in the 1940s under the colonial system. In those days, they would pick who they saw as the brightest students in the country every year, it was part of the indirect rule. So, they would send them to Oxbridge so they could kind of condition them [to have] British values and then send them back to run the colonies for them. My grandfather benefited from that, he was really grateful for his experience and my cousin found all his letters from his time at Cambridge and it was so fascinating. I feel like, reading his letters, he was constantly apologising. If he didn’t get the grades he wanted, he’d write and apologise and he’d say something like, “I hope in future, other students from Africa will come and redeem the good name of our continent,” and he felt like he was the ambassador for the black race. Any failing on his part was a failing of the race – he just felt this great burden and I think that he felt like he had to constantly account for himself, and that really struck something in me. Even though my circumstance was so completely different, you do feel that sense of not quite belonging there, of having to explain yourself and having to account for yourself, as if, it’s not your birthright to be there. That goes deep and it’s an intergenerational thing about being a black person in a white institution where you don’t feel you fit in. For years, I couldn’t articulate it, I didn’t have a name for it, but once I read my grandpa’s letters something clicked and was like, “this is Imposter Syndrome.” This is exactly what we all go through. My grandpa went to Cambridge in 1944 and so here I was, 65 years later. It’s just crazy.

‘We question whether we belong there and whether we have the right to be there, and I think that you’ve got to try and flip that on its head and think, I need to rinse this place for every drop I can get out of it. I’m going to use it before it uses me. I worked that out at some point and it really helped. I was like, you know what, whatever I can get from this place is going to give me what I need for my journey, I’m going to rinse it. It gave me a sense of control and it’s hard when you’re 19; you don’t necessarily know what you want to do with your life and you don’t feel in control, but the more you can tap into it and feel like you’re running your own thing, that’s really healthy.’

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‘Universities are not just complicit, they produce racism. They are no less institutionally racist than the police force.’

Dr Kehinde Andrews

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Universities are predominantly white and middle class, not only in terms of attendance but also in terms of staff, which can often mean they also remain so in terms of syllabuses. More than 92 per cent of British professors are white; 0.49 per cent of professors are black; and a mere 17 of those are women. 41

Only one black person is currently working in senior management in any British university. She is SOAS Director Valerie Amos, who is the first black female to lead a UK university and the country’s first black vice chancellor (the chief executive of a university), full stop. Among the 535 senior officials who declared their ethnicity in 2015, 510 were white. The figures also show that universities employ more black staff as cleaners, receptionists or porters than as lecturers. 42

Karen Blackett is listed as one of a handful of black university chancellors in the UK (a ceremonial non-resident head of the university) at Portsmouth, and out of 525 deputy vice chancellors or pro-vice chancellors, none are listed as black. 43In 2011–12, there were no more than 85 black professors in the entire country, and for many of these, it isn’t exactly plain sailing. According to a report by Professor Kalwant Bhopal, many ethnic minority academics often feel ‘untrusted’ and ‘overly scrutinised’ by colleagues and managers, as well as overlooked when it comes to opportunities for promotion. 44Another report by the Equality Challenge Unit stated that BAME academics are also more tempted than their white counterparts to flee to overseas institutions to progress their careers. 45

The issues regarding the retention of black staff are institutional, and have been the subject of many reports and papers that promise to bring about much-needed change through the reform of policies and programmes. But, as the Runnymede Trust noted in their report on race in higher education, it is all too easy for box-ticking and the filling out of required paperwork to become a substitute for real and substantial change. Many universities put their black students and staff front and centre on their prospectuses, but when it comes to actually ensuring they keep those members of the university body, they often fall far short of the mark.

For instance, the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 initially required universities to develop and publish their race-equality policies, but many universities were reluctant to do so. Now, following the implementation of the Equality Act 2010, this requirement has been downgraded to mere ‘guidance’. The lack of pressure on universities to retain their minority staff continues to affect the number of black lecturers visible to students. It’s a pressing issue, as Akwugo Emejulu, a lecturer at my old university, points out:

‘This under-representation of black women, not just as professors but throughout the academic staff in university, has lots of different effects. Firstly, it has a symbolic effect. Universities up and down the country, no matter whether they’re the most prestigious, Russell Group universities or they’re former polytechnics, they’re sending a very similar message that black women are not wanted here. They’re sending a very clear message that they do not value the research, interest and expertise of black women, they do not value black women as [being] authoritative, they do not value black women as scholars. I think there is this idea of “knowing agents”, so there is this idea that black women, regardless of the discipline that they’re in, simply cannot be seen as academic experts. I think that is the biggest issue and problem of black women: under-representation.’

Althea Efunshile agrees, adding that this dearth can impede the quality of education, too:

‘We want black people everywhere, so of course it matters. If there are whole tranches of areas of public life where it’s just white men that you see, then that means that there are whole tranches of parts of our community, our citizens, our people, who are likely to be thinking, “That might not be for me, so let me go over there instead,” but your choice about “let me go over there, let me do that” is really just because you see that there are other people like you over there. That, to me, is not acceptable, it’s not justice, it’s not equality. So of course it matters. You want to be taught, or advised, or cured by experts, you want the best people, so obviously if it’s a white man, it’s a white man, but why would you want all the experts in your field to be white men? Diversity is important because it leads to different perspectives and different ways of looking at things.