CIE Views on the Sewell Report
By: Farzana Bardai
Last updated: Monday, 24 May 2021
At the end of March 2021, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities released its report (aka the Sewell report) into racial discrimination in education, healthcare, work, and policing. It concluded that there was little evidence of institutional racism in the UK.
As researchers at CIE we disagree with the report and have written this response piece because we believe we have an intellectual responsibility to address the report’s lack of empirical rigour, its internal contradictions, and its flawed conception of race and racism.
We also believe we have an ethical responsibility to you - our students - to make clear that we reject the report and the ethos of suspicion towards democratic protest contained within it.
We want you to know that we value and support your intellectual and political agency, and that the right to protest is a key condition of substantive equality and freedom.
Please read our response on our website here.