BEN CHACKO reports on fears at TUC Congress that the provisions in the legislation are liable to be watered down even further
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Forty years on from the Swann Report
Shocking institutional racism in the schools system was exposed in a 1985 report highlighting the over-representation of black children branded ‘educationally subnormal.’ Four decades on the fight for justice continues, writes JAYDEE SEAFORTH
CHRIS HOOFE calls for support for GMB’s Potters’ Pledge campaign, aimed at making sure the historic pottery industry based in Stoke-on-Trent is supported over cheap, low-quality imports and counterfeits
Investing the £75 billion slated for defence spending on a green new deal, healthcare and education would create jobs and help communities far more than weapons spending, argues UCU general secretary JO GRADY
Speaking to the Morning Star’s Ceren Sagir, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists LAURA DAVISON outlines the threats to journalism from Palestine to Britain, and the unique challenges confronting the industry through the rise of AI
We must organise broad-based counterprotests and celebratory local community events to rebuild class consciousness and challenge the far-right’s divisive lies, writes KEVIN COURTNEY, ahead of this Saturday’s big demo in London
Artists should not be consigned to a life of precarious working – they deserve dignity and proper workers’ rights, argues ZITA HOLBOURNE
THIS month marks 40 years since the Swann Report confirmed the suspicions of black children, teachers and parents in Britain — the British education system is systemically racist. Biologist Lord Michael Swann’s powerful report wasn’t the first or last to address racial discrimination in schools, but it was groundbreaking in its thoughtfulness and acknowledgement of the scandal of “educationally subnormal” (ESN) schools.
This often forgotten miscarriage of justice took place in the 1960s and ’70s, and saw hundreds of black children wrongly sent to schools meant for pupils with severe physical and mental disabilities.
Before World War II, these schools primarily served disabled children from wealthy backgrounds — but by the late ’60s almost 30 per cent of ESN pupils in London were black immigrant children, mainly from the Caribbean, compared to 15 per cent in mainstream schools.
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A recent Immigration Summit heard from Lord Alf Dubs, who fled the Nazis to Britain as a child. JAYDEE SEAFORTH reports on his message that we need to increase public empathy with desperate people seeking asylum
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