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Group of colourful wooden people

Our Departmental anti-racism statement is being re-released to coincide with a major update to our diversity webpages

This week, we have completed a major update to our diversity webpages, which now feature more information on the range of initiatives that are ongoing in the Department.

To coincide with this update, we have re-released our anti-racism statement, which was originally created last year. The text of the statement is below:

'As historians, we are committed to challenging the persistence of racism and xenophobia, wherever they occur. In that spirit, we wish to express our solidarity with the victims of ongoing violence against Black people and people of colour, and take a stand against racist abuse on social media. We need to recognise that there have been instances of racism and xenophobia at Durham. We acknowledge the long history of xenophobia, racial violence and white supremacy that needs to be researched, understood and taught more widely in order to be challenged effectively; we recognise too that this is not a distant problem, nor something in the past, but is a pressing challenge today, for us. We would like to take this moment to renew our commitment to changing our workplace, learning environment and academic discipline for the better. We all have much work to do.'