CAR's statement on supporting racial equality

In 2020, the incidence of racially-driven brutality and murders, the evidence that COVID-19 is disproportionately affecting the Black, Asian and minority ethnic community, and the reprise of the Black Lives Matter movement have all highlighted the need for assertive action on issues of racism in all aspects of society and our lives, including academia.

As a research centre, ‘Promoting acceptance of diversity’ has been one of CAR’s aims for many years – it is central to the work we do and at the heart of our mission. Yet we acknowledge that there is much more that we can do.

CARDIE (the CAR Diversity, Inclusion & Equality group) was established in 2019 to generate suggestions of what we can do to improve in this area.

We now have an action plan, which we will be following and reviewing as we move ahead, to reflect the broad array of communities we aim to serve, including people from different ethnicities, cultures, ages, abilities, appearances, genders, sexualities, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

This includes, but is not limited to:

• Expanding our definition of appearance diversity.
• Diversifying our centre membership.
• Improving our skills and awareness of pertinent issues.
• Expanding our partnerships and range of stakeholders.
• Strengthening our research and practice that focus on promoting acceptance of diversity of appearance and reducing appearance-based stigma, prejudice and discrimination.

This isn’t going to change overnight, but we know we can no longer just say that we are against racism and support diversity of appearance – we need to take action.

We support the #BlackLivesMatter movement and, in addition to what we can do in CAR, will continue to consider how we might implement change within our wider institutional system and beyond.