Examining how universities’ policy documents are used as a form of response to students’ experiences of hate crime and incidents in higher education institutions in England.

Student experience has emerged as a prioritised agenda in a marketised higher education sector today, as students have become strategic economic assets to the English universities. Student experience, however, is a multifaceted concept. Amongst which, hate crime and incidents are deleterious to the wellbeing of students, attainment rates, and the overall student experience. The homophobic abuse of LGBT students in a Zoom meeting at Durham University is only one example of the targeted violence that left students feeling threatened. Despite the comprehensive documentation of students’ experiences of hate crime and incidents in the academic literature, existing studies have simply identified the shortcomings of universities’ responses to the problem. Therefore, to advance knowledge in this area, an in-depth examination of policies at publicly funded English universities will be conducted to understand the reasons underpinning the shortcomings of such policies. Drawing upon critical victimology and discursive institutionalism, this study posits that institutional critical victimology, as an innovative theoretical approach, could be applied to the examination of how responses to students’ experiences of hate crime and incidents, including policies, are constructed in English universities. Through a document analysis of policies at 18 universities and interviews with 36 university policy actors, the hierarchy of non-academic misconducts and power struggles between policy actors in the development and communication processes will be examined. A punitive policy discourse, a policy discourse on inclusion, and a legal policy discourse as dominant discourses embedded in the policies will also be analysed. Alongside discussions on the factors that have influenced policy actors’ agency and how agency was exercised, a new definition of an effective university policy, and the applicability of restorative justice will also be presented. Original findings in the study contribute to the future development of universities’ policies as a response to students’ experiences of hate crime and incidents.