Music students told to report slights using QR codes

A LEADING British music school has encouraged students and staff to anonymously report “microaggressions”.

Guildhall Schools of Music and Drama introduced a new reporting system to record microaggressions, which the 150-year-old London conservatoire defines as “subtle, indirect, or unintentional discrimination”.

The online reporting system was first planned in 2020 to ensure patterns of discriminatory behaviour could be “addressed and eradicated”, according to the school website.

Microaggressions are typically considered to be acts of subtle and possibly unintentional bias, which may range from making assumptions about a person based on race, to the use of incorrect gender pronouns.

Scanning the portal’s QR code on posters put up around the centre by the Students’ Union brings up a series of options, including a page to make a formal complaint against students or staff.

The Guildhall conservatoire is one of a number of leading performing arts schools to have introduced a reporting system for microaggressions.

Last year, The Daily Telegraph revealed that students at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance in Greenwich were urged to report teachers’ “microaggressions”.

Bryan Harris, legal counsel for the Free Speech Union, warned such measures can create “unpleasant reminiscences of totalitarian practice” and a “culture of student denunciation”.