Institutional racism

Institutional racism (or structural racism) is a passive form of racism that occurs in institutions such as public bodies and corporations, including universities.

In the UK, the inquiry following the murder of Stephen Lawrence defined institutional racism as the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin.

The racism need not be caused by the racism of particular individuals, though that may well be present, but by the cumulative affect of policies, systems and processes that may not have been designed with racism in mind, but which have the effect of disadvantaging certain racial groups. For example, the use of standardized testing may be seen as institutional racism, as in much of the Western world racial minorities tend to score lower.