A Discussion was held in the Senate-House. Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Anthony Minson was presiding, with the two Proctors, one Pro-Proctor, the Registrary's deputy, and seven other persons present.
The following Report was discussed:
The Joint Report of the Council and the General Board, dated 16 March 2009 and 9 March 2009, on a religion and belief equality policy (Reporter, p. 600).
Professor A. D. CLIFF:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, this Report is recommended to the Regent House to enable the University to fulfil its obligations under those strands of UK legislation which require us to ensure that religion and belief equality exists here. Equality is consistent with the University's core values of freedom of thought and expression, and freedom from discrimination of all kinds and at all times. Under the 2003 Employment Equality Regulations (Religion or Belief) employers, in order to be legally compliant, must be able to demonstrate that they have taken sufficient action in informing members of their community of their rights and responsibilities in respect of religion and belief equality. This applies for the full term of any individual's membership of the community. Professor Anderson's note of dissent is based upon, first, a misreading of the last sentence of paragraph two of the Report, the verb 'promote' qualifies 'equality', not the adjunct nouns, 'religion' and 'belief'; and second, the erroneous notion that the equality requirement in UK legislation applies only at the point of recruitment (for staff) or admission (for students) and not to the full period of membership.
Mr D. J. GOODE:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I speak today as President of the Cambridge University and College Union (UCU).
The UCU, as you would expect of any trade union, is committed to the eradication of inequality and unfair treatment in the workplace. Model rules for local associations and branches presuppose that every local association or branch will have an Equalities Officer on its executive committee, and Cambridge UCU is no exception to this. Cambridge UCU provides members for all University working groups concerned with equality, and provides valuable input to most equality policies (though, for some reason, not this one).
When preparing this speech, I asked for a copy of the equality impact assessment of this policy so that I could see the precise impact that the policy, and the various pieces of legislation underlying it, would have on members and staff of the University.
This morning, I received a response from the Director of the HR Division, saying that
…there was not the capacity in the previous E&D1 team to implement procedures or allocate resources for undertaking EqIAs2 on new and proposed policies and therefore I cannot send you the documentation you request.3
It is a legal requirement that all new and proposed policies should be subject to an equality impact assessment,4 and Cambridge UCU is disappointed that this has clearly not been happening.
The Director of HR goes on to say that,
I can reassure you though that the new E&D team in place since September has as a priority the development and implementation of procedures, guidelines, training and programming of relevant policies and functions to be impact assessed, and is allocating resources to these objectives.5
Cambridge UCU will take this opportunity to remind the University that subjecting all new and proposed policies to an equality impact assessment is a legal requirement.
So, despite not being invited to participate in formulating this particular policy, and discovering with concern that the University has not been fulfilling its legal obligation to subject new and proposed policies to an equality impact assessment, Cambridge UCU is nonetheless pleased that the policy has been produced, and that the University has made a clear and concise commitment to freedom of thought and expression and freedom from discrimination in respect of religious or philosophical beliefs or lack thereof.
The Director of HR's commitment to allocate sufficient resources as a priority for impact assessments to be made of all policies is encouraging, and Cambridge UCU looks forward to working in partnership with HR on all types of impact assessments and in reviewing and updating existing policies and producing new policies for the benefit of all members and staff of the University.
1 i.e. Equality and Diversity
2 i.e. equality impact assessments
3 Email from Director of HR's PA to the President of Cambridge UCU, at 10.21 a.m. on Tuesday, 28 April 2009
4 Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and Disability Discrimination Act (1995)
5 Email from Director of HR's PA to the President of Cambridge UCU, at 10.21 a.m. on Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Professor G. R. EVANS (read by Revd Dr M. A. GUITE):
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, with all due respect to Ross Anderson's dissenting note, I do not think this is about promoting all views as equal claimants to truth. Rather, it is written in the spirit of 'I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' So far so good. I fear that in reality this is an initiative proceeding from the direction of what is now the Human Resources Division. In that case, this document comes from the same stable as the iniquitous Statute U White Paper, with its attempt to set parameters to academic freedom by hedging it about with listed permissions to speak. It is equally misconceived and confused and equally likely to do more harm than good.
Employment matters are only a part of the story for a university. It would be praiseworthy if the driving force behind this were a wish to ensure that Cambridge is 'positioned' to resist Government pressure on universities to intrude upon students who are deemed to be potential 'terrorists' because of their faith; this is a pressure which will not be lightened by the recent furore about student visas and the Government-driven moves by HEFCE to make a bid for control of Islamic-related studies in the UK.1
If there are to be half-baked attempts at philosophical expression of complex problems in Reports to the University ('core values' indeed!) they should address the needs of the whole community and not reflect the concerns of a single division of a fragmented administrative structure.
There is no need to incorporate into the Statutes and Ordinances legal duties which automatically fall upon the University. They apply anyway.
And finally, what exactly is the force of a policy statement in the University of Cambridge? If the Regent House approves this, shall we have an Ordinance or an Order or what, and how will it be used in any ensuing disciplinary or grievance hearings or in a student complaint or disciplinary process?
1 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/sis/islamic/