| answer text |
<p>Any incident of hate crime is unacceptable and we cannot tolerate staff and students
being victims of it at our world-leading universities.</p><p>Higher education (HE)
providers have clear responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010. They should discharge
their responsibilities fully and have robust policies and procedures in place to comply
with the law, and to investigate and swiftly address incidents reported to them.</p><p>In
its guidance to the Office for Students (OfS), the government has tasked the OfS to
tackle these important issues, including the implementation of Universities UK’s (UUK)
Taskforce recommendations. The OfS and its predecessor body allocated £4.7 million
for a safeguarding scheme to address harassment and hate crime in HE. On 9 January
2020, the OfS published a consultation on harassment and sexual misconduct in HE.
This consultation, which concludes on 27 March 2020, asks for views on how the OfS
will regulate harassment, including hate-based and sexual misconduct. The OfS expects
providers to have policies, processes and systems in place to effectively address
these issues.</p><p>Evaluation to date has shown that progress has been made but that
there is still more to do. The government will continue to work closely with partners,
including UUK and the OfS to support work to address hate crime and harassment in
universities.</p>
|
|
