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The Students’ Union and the BME committee have launched a new anti-racism campaign

It will be fully rolled out in September


The Students' Union and the BME committee have launched a new campaign calling for more awareness and action over racism on campus.

The Take Racism Seriously campaign has been triggered by the banana throwing incident at Varsity ice-hockey in March, and there was anger after this was not treated as a racist incident by the University.

It is to have a broad focus, looking at all incidents of racial discrimination and lobbying the University to do more.

An email address, [email protected], has been set up for students to report incidents of racism.

The Students' Union and BME committee have made the decision not to include the University in the campaign at this stage, despite the University expressing their support and wanting to be involved.

The Sheffield Students' Union website states: "It’s time to tackle racism head on.

"Racist incidents have been widely discussed on campus, profiled in national media and sparked an anti racism protest. So what is actually being done?"

Lord Mayor of Sheffield Magid Magid will show support for the campaign, and is filming a video on Monday.

It is also hoped that activist groups including Our Mel are to become involved at a later point as the movement aims to reach across the city.

Around 3,500 Take Racism Seriously badges will be handed out with tickets at the Summer Social event on Friday 8 June. Students' Union and University will also be encouraged to wear badges.

The University of Sheffield are setting up a task force to look at racist incidents and institutional racism, which will meet for the first time this month.

Outgoing BME committee chair Hajira Liaquat told The Tab:

"We'd like to see more incidences being reported and people reporting hate crime. We know it's happening, it's just not being reported.

"Uni wanted it to be a joint SU and uni campaign, but we decided to say no to that because we need to see proof that they've committed to helping.

"Once we see they've made institutional changes, they can jump on board."

The campaign will be fully launched in September, with a range of videos set to be published in the next few weeks.