As outlined in our fictional account, a decrease in hazing requires transparency and reporting of incidences. Abuse and bullying is never acceptable…
UCL’s policy on hazing states:
Helpful resources:
Reporting Services for Initiations and Hazing:
Getting Educated
Critical race theory (CRT) is an academic framework that examines the relationship between race, power, and social structures. It emphasises that racism is not just about individual prejudice but is deeply embedded in societal systems and institutions. CRT helps us understand the systematic role of race within academic institutions and social groups, relevant here in the context of hazing. It highlights how racism operates within these systems, including the reproduction of inequality and discriminatory policies. CRT provides a valuable tool for identifying and addressing racial injustice, ultimately aiming for a more just and equitable society.
‘Epistemologies of Ignorance’ is the core theory informing this project. Mills reconceptualises the concept of ‘ignorance’ not as a passive lack of knowledge, but instead as an active process of denial, erasure, and self-deception that obfuscates racism. Aptly defined as an ‘ignorance that resists’ we see its exemplification in the experiences of initiations as ‘the way we’ve always done it’.
This implied inevitability of tradition proliferates initiation rituals.
Ignorance also maintains the ‘Racial Contract’. Defined as a set of informal ‘meta agreements’ (ie, whiteness as the dominant structure with all other experiences placed in the opposing ‘other’ category). Beneficiaries of this ‘contract’ (white people) benefit from the ignorance of white supremacy as society’s dominant model by living within a ‘racial fantasyland’. This ‘cognitive dysfunction’ protects whiteness from recognising or changing the system it benefits from at the cost of all ‘othered’ groups (ie, BAME individuals).
University as a predominantly white and upper-class institution displays a multitude of ‘ignorations’. Acknowledging the embeddedness of epistemologies of ignorance recognises that university ‘safe space’ is a misnomer. The #WhiteCurriculum movement for decolonising syllabi acknowledges the prevalence of racism in academia that causes the attrition of BAME students in matriculation. Yet this seeps further into the social culture: where ‘colour-blind’ policies maintain the ‘racial contract’ in the context of the university.