Recent developments in the United States have demonstrated how quickly diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives can be challenged, weakened or dismantled when political winds change. As anti-EDI rhetoric increasingly influences public discourse beyond America, universities and business schools across the United Kingdom face a profound test: are commitments to inclusion deeply embedded institutional values, or are they vulnerable to being treated as optional programs that can be abandoned under pressure?
In this year's Craft Lecture, Lord Simon Woolley will examine the growing challenges confronting equality and inclusion initiatives and explore what distinguishes performative commitments from enduring institutional transformation. Drawing on his experience as a campaigner, public servant, educator and legislator, he will argue that equity work must be understood as a rigorous leadership practice rather than a compliance exercise. The lecture will explore how universities can move beyond symbolic gestures towards meaningful and sustainable inclusion that shapes governance, culture, curriculum and leadership decision-making.
The lecture will challenge higher education leaders to demonstrate courage, authenticity and moral clarity in defending inclusive institutions. It will offer a practical roadmap for embedding EDI into the core mission of universities and business schools, ensuring that excellence, innovation and social justice remain mutually reinforcing goals rather than competing priorities.
Lord Simon Woolley
Lord Simon Woolley is Principal of Homerton College, University of Cambridge, and one of Britain's leading advocates for equality,
democratic participation and social justice. Founder of Operation Black Vote, he has spent three decades expanding political representation and civic engagement among underrepresented communities. His work has contributed to a significant increase in ethnic minority representation in public life and Parliament.
A Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords, Lord Woolley has served as an Equality and Human Rights Commissioner and led the UK Government's Race Disparity Unit. Knighted in 2019 for services to race equality, he is widely recognized for his leadership in advancing social mobility, inclusive leadership and educational opportunity.
About the Craft Lecture Series
Our Craft lecture series is a space to reflect on topics of inequality and social justice. Through an annual lecture Bayes invites the audience to explore the context of different historical power dynamics and consider how we, as a society, deal with the consequences of colonialism and engage in initiatives towards a sustainable future.
This lecture series celebrates the achievements of Ellen and William Craft, as representatives of those who globally fought against the slave trade. The Crafts were freedom fighters – refugees from slavery who became campaigners for its abolition. A black married couple, Ellen and William were both born into slavery in Georgia in the 1820s but managed to flee to England in 1850. In 1860 they produced an account of their daring escape entitled “Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom”. The Crafts returned to Boston in 1869, after the US Civil War had ended, and set up a school for the newly freed.
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