1999 Policy Paper “The Fight Against Racism”

ESIB is well aware of the fact that also Higher Education institutions are grounds where cultural and ethnic discrimination and harassment exist.

ESIB is an umbrella organisation for National Unions of Students in Europe. It exists to promote educational, social, economical and cultural interests of students at a European level. ESIB brings together democratic, representative and independent National Unions of Students in 29 countries throughout the whole Europe and works to promote the student view on the educational systems as a whole and on those economic, social and youth issues which affect our representative system of education as well as our status and welfare within society.

ESIB-The National Unions of Students in Europe believes that each person has to be respected and treated as a human being regardless of her/his cultural and ethnic origin. Therefore we reject any kind of cultural and ethnic discrimination and harassment in general and are concerned with the visible increase of racism, xenophobia and extreme nationalism throughout the continent.

ESIB is well aware of the fact that also Higher Education (HE) institutions are grounds where cultural and ethnic discrimination and harassment exist. Foreign and minority students are often subjects to forms of discrimination in Higher Education such as access, marking and social welfare.

Therefore, the members of ESIB commit themselves

• to raise awareness on racism, xenophobia and extreme nationalism in general and particularly on campuses
• to oppose all kind of discrimination on HE level and work to ensure that all students have the rights they need to achieve equal opportunities, regardless of their ethnic or cultural origin
• to work for the integration of intercultural learning into HE and encourage multicultural activities on campus, in order to achieve a university, that, as an integral part of the culture of a country and region, is also open to the world
• to support exchange programs and actively help foreign students
• to support development of local anti-racism projects in line with ESIB’s policies