The Public Sector Equality Duty: Formal Equality, Institutional Processes and Legal Compliance in Higher Education

The aim of this paper is to build on a previous paper which explored the politics and perspectives of various social actors regarding anti-discrimination legislation and equality within a higher education setting. This paper will discuss the impact of the politics and perceptions on compliance with legislative requirements as reflected through the equality processes within a case study institution. In considering this, the question which will be borne in mind is: does the tendency towards adopting the formal equality stance also impact on the case study’s equality processes and, in turn, their response to the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED)? Such an analysis could have wider implications on how equality and compliance with the law is dealt with in other Higher Education Institutions (HEI).