Black students frustrated at lack of action on university racism, MPs told

MPs were told of cases of mistreatment ‘so upsetting and so traumatic and so shocking’ that it led black academics to consider taking their own lives. Photograph: Colin Underhill/Alamy

Academics and student leaders have told MPs of their frustration at the denial of and the lack of practical action to tackle the “ingrained institutional racism” experienced by black students and staff on university campuses.

Nicola Rollock, a professor of social policy and race at King’s College London, said examples of racism within academia had been “trivialised beyond belief” by the media despite leading some of its victims to consider suicide.