Student complaints about teaching methods raise concerns

Sandra* is an Aboriginal woman who works as a lecturer at a private tertiary educational institution. Her supervisor raised concerns with her about her teaching methods. This included a list of student feedback, one of which had alleged that she had been smoking and drinking wine during one of her lectures. Sandra was horrified to face such an accusation and doubted the veracity of the feedback as coming from a student. 

Sandra lodged a discrimination complaint with ADNSW on the ground of race. ADNSW investigated the complaint by obtaining relevant information from both parties.

Sandra said she had worked in teaching for many years and was extremely professional in her approach. She did not believe that her supervisor had raised the alleged student feedback in good faith, which perpetuated negative stereotypes of Aboriginal people.

The complaint was resolved at a conciliation conference held via MS Teams. This enabled Sandra to express her concerns to her employer’s head of people and culture. While Sandra’s employer denied that bringing student complaints to Sandra’s attention amounted to unlawful race discrimination, it still listened attentively to Sandra and acknowledged her concerns and distress.

She said that as a result of the conciliation conference she now felt heard and considered her complaint resolved.

* Name has been changed to protect the privacy of the individual