When @Ngati_Frybread posed a question on their Instagram meme page asking Maori and Pasifika to share their experiences of racism at school, they received 900 responses in three days.

By Thursday there were about 1300 and they were hugely varied.

Students described being subject to racial slurs and harmful stereotypes, having their names repeatedly mispronounced and culture devalued.

In 2018, Maori students continued to be stood down at a greater rate than any other ethnic group.

A 2018 report, the age-standardised stand-down rate for Maori students was 44.3 per 1000 students.

This is two times higher than European/Pakeha students (20.9 stand-downs per 1000 students).

The rate for Pasifika students in 2018 was 28.2 per 1000 students.

Teacher, as well as pupils, report instances of discrimination.

The New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) commissioned the Australian Catholic University to look into principals' health and wellbeing.

The study has been running since 2016, and aims to shed some light on exactly how principals' work is affecting their lives.

The 2018 Report revealed:

• 27 percent of Maori and Pasifika school leaders identify their ethnicity as a source of relationship tension.
• 25.8 percent who reported discrimination at work, based on ethnicity, compared to about 9 percent of non-Maori leaders.

Lead researcher associate professor Phil Riley said senior school leaders had even reported discrimination when dealing with government agencies, including the Ministry of Education and the Education Review Office.

@Ngati FryBread have started a petition calling on the Government to address systemic racism in education.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• newsroom.co.nz
• campaigns.nzei.org.nz
• educationcounts.govt.nz
• Image: newsroom.co.nz

Click to access Discrimination_-_FINAL_report_for_launch_20180614.pdf

One News on Monday, December 9, reported that Jagdip Bajwa went to the Manurewa Cosmopolitan Club with some friends on the evening of Sunday, December 1 when he was denied entry stating his turban violated the club's ban on headwear. Read more

Facebook said it has removed more than 5,000 ad-targeting categories to limit the ability of advertisers to exclude users based on ethnicity or religion.

Until now, when an advertiser created an ad for Facebook, a tab "to exclude persons who correspond more or less to the following criteria" allowed for the audience to be filtered based on terms such as "halal," "Islamic vocabulary" or "Shariah."

These terms have now been eliminated.

Advertisers will now have to go through a process of certification to educate them on the "difference between acceptable ad targeting and ad discrimination," Facebook wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.

Facebook France communications representative, Ben Puygrenier, says the religious aspect of the advertising targeting criteria was significant.

"Most targeting options allowed advertisers to identify and exclude ethnic and religious groups," he said.

"Hence, by blocking people interested in the Jewish feast of the Passover, an advertiser could prevent Jewish web surfers from seeing certain ads," he explained.

Facebook is popular among advertisers because it gives them access to an audience of 2.2 billion users and allows them to slice and dice that audience with precision, so they can reach the exact people they're looking for.

But offering such precise targeting to its advertising customers left Facebook exposed to various forms of manipulation, necessitating the current review of its policies and practices.

Source

• La Croix
• CNet
• Buzzfeed News
• Image: The Telegraph