Tony Sewell

Tony Sewell CBE
Sewell in 2020
Chair of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities
Incumbent
Assumed office July 2020 (2020-07)
Prime Minister	Boris Johnson
Personal details
Born	1959 (age 61–62) Brixton, London, England
Nationality	British
Alma mater	University of Essex (B.A.) University of Nottingham (Ph.D.)
Occupation	Educational consultant
Website	www.gov.uk/government/people/tony-sewell

Tony Sewell CBE (born 1959) is a British educational consultant and CEO of the educational charity .^[1] In July 2020, Sewell was appointed chair of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities tasked with looking into race disparity in the UK.^[2]

Early life[]

Tony Sewell was born in Brixton in 1959 and grew up in Penge, Bromley. Sewell's parents arrived in London in the 1950s from Jamaica. During his childhood, Sewell was a member of the Scouts and much of his adolescence was spent in Church youth-group activities in and around Sydenham.^[3]

In 1981, Sewell graduated from the University of Essex where he studied English Literature.^[4]

Professional life[]

After graduating from university, Sewell was employed as a school teacher in Brent. Sewell left this role to teach in Jamaica for two years.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he wrote a weekly social commentary column for The Voice. In 1995, he received a PhD from the University of Nottingham.^[5] In 2012, Sewell was appointed by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to chair an inquiry into the challenges faced by primary and secondary schools in London.^[6] The inquiry's findings resulted in the government agreeing to provide £26 million to improve teachers' subject knowledge as part of the London Schools Excellence Fund.^[4][7]

In October 2015, Sewell was appointed as a member of the Youth Justice Board.^[7]

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities[]

In July 2020, Sewell was appointed chair of a Government commission tasked with looking into race disparity in the UK. His appointment was criticised by the Muslim Council of Britain, which argued that Sewell was "keen on downplaying race disparities".^[2] On 31 March 2021, Sewell's commission, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, published its 258-page report,^[8] which concluded that the UK was not institutionally racist.^[9] E

After the report's publication, Sewell received extensive online criticism, including from hard-left Labour MP Clive Lewis, who compared the report's authors to the Ku Klux Klan, and Cambridge post-colonial studies academic Priyamvada Gopal.^[10][11] Gopal criticised the report for cherry-picking data and minimising and denying structural and institutional racism, asserting that the report read like a propaganda document rather than a piece of research. Her claims were dismissed by the report's co-authors, who pointed out that Gopal had no statistical training.^[10][12] Trevor Phillips, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission who supported the report, criticised the "white establishment" for not defending Sewell.^[12] In May 2021, Equalities minister Liz Truss was unable to name a supportive voice on the Race report when challenged to name a person outside of government who supported its findings.^[13] Commentators on race, education, health, and economics, chiefly from the political left, criticised the report's findings for downplaying the extent of racism in Britain.^[14][15] The report was however praised by writer and former Social Mobility commmissioner David Goodhart and by The Times, which described it as a "nuanced and practical document".^[16][17]

Controversies[]

Schools 'too feminine for boys'[]

In 2006, Sewell said that boys were being failed by schools because lessons had become too "feminised".^[18] Sewell's comments were criticised by John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. Dunford accused Sewell of making "sweeping generalisations" and argued that "schools have put an immense amount of effort into raising boys' achievement in recent years, just as they did for girls in the previous years".^[19]

Anti-gay comments[]

In July 2020, The Guardian revealed that in 1990 Sewell published a column in the Voice newspaper in which he said: "We heteros are sick and tired of tortured queens playing hide and seek around their closets. Homosexuals are the greatest queer-bashers around. No other group of people are so preoccupied with making their own sexuality look dirty."

In response to The Guardian's story, Sewell apologised and said that his comments were "wrong and offensive".^[20]

Awards[]

In 2016, Sewell was awarded a CBE for his work in education.

In 2017, Sewell was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in law from the University of Exeter.

In 2018, Sewell became an Honorary Fellow of University College London.

In 2018, Sewell was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of law from the University of Essex in 2019.^[21]

Publications[]

• Garvey's children: the legacy of Marcus Garvey. London: Voice Communications, 1987.
• Jamaica Inc.. London: The X Press, 1993.
• Keep on Moving: The Windrush Legacy - The Black Experience in Britain from 1948. London: Voice Enterprises, 1998.
• Black Masculinities and Schooling: How Black Boys Survive Modern Schooling. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books Ltd, 1996.
• Generating Genius: Black Boys in Love, Ritual and Schooling. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham, 2006.

References[]