2024-01-01 11:00:08
On an international scale, universities are developing inclusive policies, summarized in a project that can be summed up in three words: equality, diversity, inclusion. In France, since 2013, universities have been required to create missions for equality between women and men. Broadening this obligation, the majority of them include within their scope the fight against discrimination in the same way as the fight against sexual and gender-based violence or even harassment.
The adoption of the “law to control immigration, improve integration” of December 19, 2023 questions us about the relevance of our missions. Can the presidency of a university or the management of a major school still appoint colleagues to implement equality and anti-discrimination policies, even though a law establishes inequalities in the treatment of women? student community according to the criterion of nationality?
How can we respond to the contradictory demands of a government which asks us to work towards inclusion, to formalize and implement action plans for equality, to establish and operate equality mechanisms? listening and reporting acts of violence, discrimination and harassment and who, at the same time, establishes a law that weakens our most vulnerable students?
A shocking tiebreaker
How can we still simply talk about equality and non-discrimination, fight against racism and anti-Semitism step by step (as we did during our last meetings in Nanterre, on December 7 and 8, 2023), engage in the design and implementation of an ambitious equality policy, with students to whom the law clearly indicates that they are objects of suspicion?
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In addition to the loss of confidence in our institutions, our foreign students will live in worry and fear, due to the weakening of the right to stay induced by the law. And we do not forget that these feelings also affect our colleagues, as well as foreign administrative and technical staff, who operate our higher education and research establishments on the basis of fixed-term contracts, and who will, all and all, find themselves even more vulnerable depending on the nature of their contract, the length of stay, etc.
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This breakdown in equality is truly shocking and goes against all the incentives to make our campuses protective and protected spaces where hospitality, trust and kindness guide our interactions. Our presence on the ground of universities and Grandes Écoles makes us direct witnesses to the difficulties encountered by foreign students, despite the measures taken by establishments to welcome them with dignity and offer them complete equal treatment.
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