SU22 – Our questions to Equality and Diversity officer candidates

Questions to Equality and Diversity officer candidate, Kieron Portbury

What’s your number one priority?

Kieron: Ensuring accessibility and inclusivity across university structures both online and in-person. This is beneficial to students for whom these accessibility features are a necessity, such as those with a disability, but also to all students, allowing for a more asymmetric and efficient learning style that prioritizes flexibility over rigidity.

Six months after you start, what real differences will disabled students see in their university experience?

Kieron: There will ideally be a more cohesive learning experience that is blended between in-person learning and online learning, with all classes that can be practically recorded done so as standard and the transcripts for these classes – which are automatically generated by Microsoft Teams – consistently made available for students to access. Existing university spaces can be repurposed as sensory-friendly environments designed to be quiet and have adjustable lighting and temperature control. These could be particular study rooms in the libraries that are prioritized for students registered with disability services.

How can you represent the needs and interests of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) students?

Kieron: I aim at developing an active anti-racism initiative that is constantly changing and developing to suit the needs of BIPOC students, built on a similar framework to the current anti-sexual harassment initiative. This would involve workshops and seminars delivered by Student’s Union Officers and charity organizations, pledges for students and staff to actively monitor for and challenge racist attitudes/behaviour, and resources both physical and digital to help educate and spread awareness among students.

How have your personal experiences shaped your manifesto?

Kieron: I belong to a number of marginalised and oppressed communities – I am queer, trans/non-binary, and disabled, so I have first-hand experience of the uphill battle students with minority characteristics face. Being a part of these communities has shown me the sense of joy that is fostered among people who come together to fight against oppression, and the difficulties that can make student life so much harder than it should be. My continuing activism for ideals such as reproductive justice, abolition, and disability rights have strengthened my belief that nobody should face a lesser quality of life because of a characteristic they cannot control. In practice, this means that no student should have to struggle at university because of who they are. And yet being a woman, being a BIPOC student, being disabled – these are all factors that can make student life that much harder.

If you could have dinner with three famous people, dead or alive, who would they be?

Kieron: Derecka Purnell, Thomas Mathiesen, and W.E.B. DuBois – all of whom are prominent abolitionist scholars from different periods of time.