Mr Carlos Wong – Written evidence (YDP0010)

Being a disabled PG student going through disability discrimination in university setting that pushes me to the brink of termination of studies makes me really surprised at the lack of institutional protection of disabled students.

Under the Equality Act of 2010, disability discrimination is not a criminal offence. Institutions appear to be able to mistreat disabled students in any way they wish if a victim is not rich enough to sue a university over any violations, e.g. committing or enabling such discrimination by any of their academic staff. Institutions – based on a simple search of old cases – are also free to ignore public ombudsman recommendations even if they are found to have violated the Act since (1) such violations are not criminal in nature (2) public ombudsman have no prosecution power. 

There could be no legal consequences for them at all, not mentioning the general bureaucratic, crony or even corrupt nature of university internal complaint procedures whereby case investigations tend to rule against powerless student complainants. Institutions committing such violations should be punishable by fines and other legal sanctions, e.g. block in research funding, restrictions on student admission.

It won't even be a bad idea to have public ombudsman officers mandatorily appointed to every university to oversee their complaint procedures (and be granted the right to veto their decisions) when a significant proportion of universities gravitate towards abusing academic freedom to cover up predatory practices contributing to massive suffering and career destruction of disabled students.

This is my layman view– it has been 13 years since the Act came into being and is the time for a really serious review and consideration of amendments. When verbal insults rooted in prejudices are a criminal offence, I don't see how institutional disability discrimination should not become a criminal offence given that the damages thereof to one's well-being can absolutely be permanent.

5 August 2023