Students at Black Lives Matters protests around the world have staged a take-over of St Andrews University’s Instagram account.
Images were posted from protests in the USA and UK sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis amid demands for the Fife institution to admit more students from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.
Students reported from demonstrations including those in Washington, Massachusetts, Birmingham, Glasgow and Edinburgh in a series of posts in which they claimed the university needed to do more to improve diversity.
They also said it should acknowledge its “dreadful history of white privilege” and there had been a “lack of action” to remedy its “racial imbalances and outright racist occurrences, past and present”.
Meawhile, a petition to principal Sally Mapstone demanded a significant increase in the number of BAME students and lecturers and an open letter called for an apology to black students for having “fallen short” of its commitment to diversity.
In April last year 8.7% of St Andrews students were BAME and during 2017/18 only 1.3% of entrants were black. The university said the proportion of BAME staff was increasing.
Prof Mapstone admitted the centuries-old institution’s part in “unwittingly” prolonging the legacy of discrimination in a message to students and staff last Thursday.
She said: “We must accept, as a 600-year-old institution, that while we might pride ourselves on our commitment to diversity and our intolerance of all racism, we have long been a part of the establishment and structures which perpetuate discrimination in this and other countries.”
But she also said that staff and student had the resources, choices, intellect and opportunity to lever change and said: “Let us condemn racism with our research, our ideas, our actions and sacrifices, and our willingness to be challenged and changed.”
A university spokesman said: “Instagram takeovers give students space to share their views.
“We organise them as part of our commitment to supporting students to be challenging, to hold those in power to account and to engage in constructive activism.
“To inform debate, we’ve shared our principal’s statement across our website and social channels.
“We’ve made literature and resources available to help people educate themselves and learn more about the issues.”
He also said the assistant vice principal responsible for diversity had updated students, including those involved in the takeover, on action being taken.
The university’s strategic plan contains a commitment to diversity and inclusion. It set up a race equality group last December, recruitment and promotion procedures have been revised and a curriculum audit is underway.
Mr Floyd’s death on May 25, after white policeman Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes, has sparked global protests.
Chauvin has been charged with murder and manslaughter and three other officers have been charged with aiding and abetting.
