After a year-long enquiry into racism at Ryerson University, a 107-page report has been released detailing feelings of exclusion and harassment felt by some members of the university’s visible minorities.
According to the report, the need for the taskforce sparked in 2008 after a cycle of racist occurrences that began happening on a regular basis.
The report calls for anti-racism training for senior staff, more awareness in hiring visible minorities as well as more education on diversity to monitor race-based information on staff and students to determine whether or not the school is improving.
The reports calls on Ryerson to pursue its mandate and “advance applied knowledge and research to address a social need” while keeping in mind the important role diversity has.
“The response from the greater Ryerson community has been great,” said Salmann Khan, one of the students involved with the taskforce.“There were a lot of people who took great interest in our work throughout the year, and nonetheless they are pleased with the recommendations in the report.”
But some students feel the issue has been blown out of proportion.
“Within my specific program everyone is very friendly and superficial issues like racism don't really exist,” said Sam Russell, a first-year Ryerson student. “Maybe I haven't socialized with enough people outside my program to form a well rounded opinion. However, as it stands, I am comfortable with the noticeable behaviour of my fellow students.”
“My reaction to the implementation of this task force was that it seems like they are making it a huge deal and making those of other racial minorities seem even more out of place or awkward,” said first-year Ryerson student Erinn Brady.
Khan said the students and faculty involved in the taskforce are pushing forward recommendations to successfully provide a safe place for people to learn, teach and work, addressing these issues of racial and gender inclusion is essential to the university.
Some recommendations include the amendment of the Civility Policy to include a “freedom from discrimination” guarantee, guidelines for training and dealing with unwanted classroom behaviour and a potential general course on equity covering topics of anti-racism, anti-Semitism and homophobia.
Staff is not excused from the racism within the school. Faculty mentioned supporting a “culture of labour” as opposed to equity and had issues with management getting religious holidays off. Other areas of concern included 80 per cent of people working in food services feeling discriminated through racist jokes and health jokes.
A Census Day is also being encouraged so that staff and students can fill out questionnaires about their ethnicity as a way to track the demographics of equality within the school.
York University, the University of Western Ontario and Queen’s University have recently reviewed diversity and cultural tension within their system as well.