Dear EECS Students and Staff,
Here in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, we stand in support of and solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and those peacefully protesting following the horrific killing of George Floyd in the US. We have all been shocked and saddened by the death of George Floyd and the historic and ongoing racism and anti-Blackness in the US, the UK, and across the world. We want to share in expressing our condolences to all those affected, and in condemning incidents of racism and hate crimes. We stand with and support our Black colleagues, students, friends, and family.
We recognise that the systems and underlying attitudes that led to George Floyd’s death are not unique in either time or place: racism, anti-blackness, and inequality are unfortunately found across the UK. We recognise the distress that this incident has caused to staff and students, particularly Black staff and students, and that this stress is compounded by the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic which has also disproportionately affected Black and ethnic minority people. As a community, we commit ourselves to caring for each other and to being open to talk, listen, and learn about these issues.
Many will also want to express solidarity with those taking action at the moment. You can join us in finding out more about the #BlackLivesMatter movement and how we can support it by donating, educating ourselves and others, as well as self-care and support for Black communities here:
https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co
We recognise that it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.
Support is available for students and staff who have been victims of hate-crime here:
https://reportandsupport.qmul.ac.uk/support/what-support-is-available-for-hate-crimesincidents
And general staff support here:
http://hr.qmul.ac.uk/wellbeing/mental-wellbeing/employee-assistance-programme/
Although we are striving for equality within the School, we recognise that more efforts are needed going forwards to recruit, mentor, support and promote BAME academics, technical and professional-services staff. EECS is committed to progressing equality, diversion and inclusion. Our Equalities Committee has been working to address inequalities within our School and we will use our next meeting to reflect on how well our Action Plan addresses race equality and identify further avenues for promoting and supporting diversity and inclusion for all our staff and students.