• negatively impacts academic performance, as emotional distress, and a weakened sense of belonging hinder students’ ability to succeed (Gurley, 2022). At the University of Greenwich, we are taking initial steps to address these challenges. As part of Black History 365 last November, our university community took a stand. The powerful photograph in the header above was captured on our Greenwich Maritime Campus. It features Black staff and students proudly wearing their natural hair, standing together with non-Black colleagues and students who support their right to wear their hair naturally without discrimination. This visual statement of solidarity demonstrates how institutions can actively challenge discriminatory narratives. The ‘Halo Code’, 2 a UK initiative, sets voluntary guidelines to protect Black students and employees from hair-based discrimination. While it raises awareness of this issue in British schools and workplaces, Rollock (2022) argues that voluntary measures alone are insufficient to address systemic inequalities. Ahmed (2012) calls for enforceable policies, while Joseph-Salisbury and Connelly (2018) emphasise the need for comprehensive anti-discrimination frameworks. Tackling hair bias is a crucial step towards decolonising universities and dismantling systemic racial inequities. Institutions can challenge Eurocentric norms and help close the BAME Awarding Gap through embedding anti-discrimination policies and fostering inclusivity. Additionally, research and policy reform are essential to ensuring that Black students and staff can thrive without compromising their identity. Our solidarity photograph is not an endpoint but a call to action. We urge UK higher education institutions to: • Collect national data on the impact of hair discrimination on student attainment, sense of belonging and identity. • Conduct research on how Black staff and students navigate identity expression amid hair bias. • Assess how hair discrimination affects academic success and inclusion within university communities. The time has come to decolonise not only our hair practices but also our research agendas. We must examine the complex relationships between hair politics, health and educational experience if we are to move beyond surface-level diversity initiatives towards sustained institutional transformation that centres the wellbeing and dignity of Black students and staff.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. If professionalism in education continues to be shaped by Eurocentric norms, can we genuinely claim that our schools and universities are inclusive? 2. What assumptions about race, respectability and success are embedded within institutional appearance and uniform policies? 3. What would it take for educational institutions to move beyond symbolic solidarity and implement measurable, sustained structural change that addresses hair-based discrimination? Gurley, Z. (2022). Influence of racism on minority students’ mental health and academic performance. Journal of Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research , 14 (4), 49–55. https:// knowledge.e.southern.edu/jiur/vol14/iss1/4 Henry, C. (2021). Knot today: A look at hair discrimination in the workplace and schools. Thurgood Marshall Law Review , 46 , 29. Joseph-Salisbury, R., & Connelly, L. (2018). ‘If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. If your hair is nappy, they’re not happy’: Black hair as a site of ‘post-racial’ social control in English schools. Social Science s, 7 (11), 219. Rollock, N. (2022). The racial code: Tales of resistance and survival . Random House. https://www.google.co.uk/books/ edition/The_Racial_Code/SiZhEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 REFERENCES Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life . Duke University Press. Doharty, N. (2020). The ‘Angry Black Woman’ as intellectual bondage: Being strategically emotional on the academic plantation. Race Ethnicity and Education , 23 (4), 548–562. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1679751 Equality and Human Rights Commission. (2022). Preventing hair discrimination in schools . https://www.equalityhumanrights. com/guidance/public-sector-equality-duty/preventing-hair- discrimination-schools Griffiths, S., & Haughton, M. (2021). UK Black hair matters: A thematic analysis exploring Afro-Caribbean women’s hair as representations of the socially constructed knowledge of identity and identity threats. Psychology of Women & Equalities Review , 4 (2). https://doi.org/10.53841/bpspowe.2021.4.2.17
2 https://www.halocollective.co.uk/
BERA BITES 15 | EDUCATING FOR ALL
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