Meghan Markle Wants To Change UK Universities In This Way

Members of the British Royal Family have been known to back political causes on occasion. However, since Meghan Markle joined the fray by marrying Prince Harry last year, she had not done a great deal of that until now. Markle has found her first political action as a royal, according to The Sunday Times.

The Duchess of Sussex has reportedly begun supporting an effort to “decolonize” higher education curriculum in the UK. The idea is that UK universities do not properly deal with the legacies of racism and empire, while also employing professors who are largely white and male.

Markle is now behind a movement to promote greater diversity on UK campuses instead of the “male, pale and stale” status quo.

As patron of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, Markle reportedly visited City University in London in January and was handed a piece of paper showing diversity statistics for UK college professors.

“Oh my god,” Markle reportedly said in response.

Nearly 70 percent of college professors in the UK are white males, according to data cited by the Daily Mail. Another 23 percent are white women, while black and minority ethnic men and women combined make up just 8.5 percent of the workforce. Only 2 percent of professors are black and minority ethnic women, according to the data.

Data from the Higher Education Statistics Authority found that only 8 percent of first-year undergraduate students in the UK were black in 2017, according to the BBC. The data went as far as to track first-year student intake at specific schools, like Oxford and Cambridge. For both universities, fewer than 2 percent of new students in 2017 were black.

One prominent example of UK university students trying to confront imperial legacy on a campus was at Oxford in 2016. Students rallied to get a statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes removed from the campus, but were ultimately unsuccessful. It was decided that the statue would stay.