Committed to equality of opportunity and fair treatment for all.

Guidance and legislation

The Equality Act (2010)

The Equality Act (2010) protects individuals against direct and indirect discrimination, harassment and victimisation, on the basis of 9 protected characteristics:

  • Age (excluding under-18s);
  • Disability;
  • Gender reassignment (including people who have proposed, started or completed a process to change their sex but who are not under medical supervision);
  • Marriage/civil partnership (but it does not protect against those who are not married or in a civil partnership);
  • Pregnancy and maternity (defined as all stages of pregnancy and the 26 week period following the birth of a child);
  • Race (including caste, nationality, ethnicity, skin colour);
  • Religion or belief (also includes atheism or agnosticism);
  • Sex;
  • Sexual orientation.

The Equality Act (2010), including the public sector equality duty, replaces all previous equalities legislation such as the Race Relations Act, Disability Discrimination Act and Sex Discrimination Act.

A more detailed guide to the legislation, including a quick reference sheet for what is covered for each protected characteristic, is included in the documents below.

What this means for the University of Brighton

The university has a number of policies that promote equality and diversity for its staff and students.  Details of staff-facing policies, such as issues around recruitment, support for parents, the two-ticks scheme, and flexible working and retirement, can be found on the Human Resources website website.  More general university policies, including student-facing policies such as admissions, assessment and placements, may can be found on the Quality pages of staffcentral.

As part of our equality objectives, we aim to ensure that equality and diversity considerations are considered within all parts of the day-to-day running of the university to make sure that we make informed and appropriate decisions and do not ‘unwittingly’ cause discrimination. More detail about this mainstreaming strategy and our current progress, can be found within the Equality Impact Assessment page.

Good practice guidance and research

The university’s approach to equality is informed by institutional and sector research as well as good practice guidance.  This includes reports from organisations such as the Equality Challenge Unit, the Higher Education Academy and government.

The documents below include recent research reports that relate to the higher education experiences of staff and students, guidance documents relating to specific managerial and pedagogic functions, and links to other university resources and departments. 

If you are looking for information or resources relating to a particular topic or would like any additional guidance, please do not hesitate to contact us and we will do our best to help.