Discrimination and harassment

1.1 Background

The project’s final report highlighted the following findings in relation to unfair treatment on the basis of religion in HEIs:

two-thirds or more of Muslim organisations reported unfair treatment from other staff and students in higher education, and from the policies and practices of HEIs

unfair treatment from other students was also mentioned by two-thirds or more of Jewish and Sikh organisations, and by five of the seven black-led churches answering this question

while over 40% of Christian organisations mentioned unfair treatment from other staff and students, only around half this proportion said their members had experienced unfair treatment from the policies and practices of HEIs

Soon after this research, the National Association for Teachers in Further and Higher Education published Discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief (NATFHE, 2002). This helped HEIs prepare for the introduction, in 2003, of the employment (religion or belief) regulations, which brought obligations for HEIs relating to religion or belief, both as employers and providers of vocational training. These regulations came in the wake of the implementation, in 2000, of the Human Rights Act 1998, which, for the first time in the UK outside Northern Ireland, introduced legal responsibilities concerning religion or belief for public bodies, including HEIs. In response to the regulations, ECU (2005) issued its guidance on Employing people in higher education: religion and belief.

Other relevant legislation has since come into force, including the Religious and Racial Hatred Act 2006, prior to which Universities UK, ECU, and the Standing Conference of Principals issued a policy and practice document entitled Promoting good campus relations: dealing with hate crimes and intolerance (Universities UK et al, 2005). Subsequently, the Equality Act 2006 came into force, which has recently been further updated, integrated and consolidated by the Equality Act 2010.

The Equality Act 2010 reforms and harmonises discrimination law in the UK and strengthens the law relating to equality. The Act makes it unlawful to discriminate against anyone on grounds of one of nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief (including lack of belief), sex, and sexual orientation. Significantly, the Act introduces a new public sector equality duty, covering religion and belief, in relation to which HEIs must show due regard to:

eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Act

advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and people who do not share it

foster good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and people who do not share it

In what is still a developing area of policy and law, there remains some contestation around what is appropriately included in and excluded from definitions of belief under the law. The case of Grainger plc and others v. Nicholson suggests that for a philosophical belief (including, in this case, philosophical belief on climate change) to afford this protection, it must:

be genuinely held

be a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available

be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour

attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance

be worthy of respect in a democratic society and not incompatible with human dignity and/or conflict with the fundamental rights of others

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in this case accepted that although support for a political party would not be considered a philosophical belief, belief in political philosophies such as socialism, Marxism, communism or free-market capitalism might qualify. Further to this, the EAT noted that a racist or homophobic political philosophy would not qualify as a philosophical belief as the belief must be worthy of respect in a democratic society and not incompatible with human dignity.

The EAT accepted that a philosophical belief could be based entirely on scientific conclusions. The EAT gave the example of Darwinism, which it said must plainly be capable of being a philosophical belief.

For further information on the legal context in the UK, see the ECU religion and belief law pages: www.ecu.ac.uk/law. For discussions of the broader research evidence relating to religious discrimination in Britain over the past decade, see Weller’s (2011) review of relevant evidence over the decade 2000–10.

Academic interest in the place of religion or belief in UK higher education has grown alongside these policy developments. An unpublished UK-wide survey of HEI policies relating to religion and chaplaincy provision fed into Higher education and student religious identity (Gilliat-Ray, 1999). Religion in higher education: the politics of the multi-faith campus (Gilliat-Ray, 2000) continues to provide a strong foundation for discussion of religion or belief in higher education.

More recently, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) commissioned the religious literacy leadership in higher education project (www.religiousliteracyhe.org), for which a phase one programme evaluation and a number of case studies for promoting reflection and leadership action have been published (Dinham and Jones, 2010, 2011).

Within the religion and society programme of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), there is an ongoing project on Christianity and university experience in contemporary England (www.cueproject.org.uk). A more detailed review of the relevant academic literature is provided in appendix 4 (www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/religion-and-belief-staff-and-students-in-he).