Tony Sewell

The Right Honourable The Lord Sewell of Sanderstead CBE
Official portrait, 2024
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal
Incumbent
Assumed office 16 December 2022 Life peerage
Chair of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities
In office July 2020 – 28 April 2021
Prime Minister	Boris Johnson
Personal details
Born	Cleveland Anthony Sewell (1959-08-06) 6 August 1959 (age 64) Brixton, England
Political party	Conservative
Alma mater	University of Essex (BA) University of Nottingham (PhD)
Occupation	Educational consultant

Cleveland Anthony Sewell, Baron Sewell of Sanderstead, CBE (born 6 August 1959), is a British educational consultant and founder and chair of the educational charity Generating Genius.^[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] Sewell sits as a life peer in the House of Lords. He has been described as an admirer of the Black conservative scholar Thomas Sowell.^[3]

Early life and education

Tony Sewell was born in Brixton, London, on 6 August 1959^[4] and grew up in Penge, a London suburb in Bromley. Sewell's parents arrived in the United Kingdom from Jamaica in the 1950s. 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.^[5]

In 1981, Sewell graduated from the University of Essex with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature.^[6] He subsequently received a PhD degree in education from the University of Nottingham in 1995, with a thesis on "the relationship between African-Caribbean boys' sub-culture and schooling".^[7]

Professional life

Teaching

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. This column was entitled "Live and Kicking" and was intended to be thought provoking. Sewell also had a weekly programme on Choice FM as a talk show host.

After gaining his doctorate in 1995, Sewell worked for many years as a university lecturer at Kingston University and at the University of Leeds.

The Learning Trust

Sewell helped with the transformation of education in Hackney as part of the team that set up the Learning Trust and the Mossbourne School. This work had national significance given that it was the flagship of the Academy movement.

Commonwealth Secretariat

Amongst his accomplishments, Sewell has been an international consultant in education for the World Bank and Commonwealth Secretariat.

London Schools Excellence Fund

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.^[8] 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.^[6][9]

Youth Justice Board

In October 2015, Sewell was appointed as a member of the Youth Justice Board^[9] for England and Wales.

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, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities led by Sewell, published its 258-page report,^[10] which concluded that while racism exists in the UK, the UK was not institutionally racist.^[11]

After the report's publication, Sewell received extensive online criticism, including from Labour MP Clive Lewis, who tweeted a picture of a Ku Klux Klan member,^[12] and from Cambridge post-colonial studies academic Priyamvada Gopal, who sought to deny that Sewell had a real doctorate and then compared him to Joseph Goebbels.^[13] Trevor Phillips, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission who supported the report, criticised the "white establishment" for not defending Sewell.^[14]

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.^[15][16] The report was, however, praised by writer and former Social Mobility commissioner David Goodhart and by The Times, which described it as a "nuanced and practical document".^[17][18] The Runnymede Trust, a race equality think tank, said it was a "let down" by the report and its denial of the existence of institutional racism.^[19]

In March 2022, the Inclusive Britain report was published. This was the Government's formal response to the Sewell Report, which accepted all the recommendations the report made.^[20]

A further study on racial disparity, led by Nissa Finney, a professor of human geography at the University of St Andrews specialising in inequalities and social justice, was published in April 2023. It claimed that the Sewell Report downplayed the existence and impact of structural and institutional racism and concluded that "Britain is not close to being a racially just society". Its findings were not recognised by the government.^[21]

Peerage

It was announced on 14 October 2022, that as part of the 2022 Special Honours, Sewell would be appointed a life peer.^[22] On 16 December 2022, he was created Baron Sewell of Sanderstead, of Sanderstead in the County of Surrey.^[23][24]

Controversies

Schools 'too feminine for boys'

In 2006, Sewell said that boys were being failed by schools because lessons had become too "feminised".^[25] 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".^[26]

Sexuality 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".^[27]

Honours and awards

In the 2016 Birthday Honours, Sewell was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to education.^[28][29]

In 2017, Sewell was awarded an Honorary LLD degree from the University of Exeter.^[30]

In 2018, Sewell became an Honorary Fellow of University College London.^[31]

In 2018, Sewell was awarded an Honorary LLD degree from the University of Essex in 2019.^[32]

In 2019, it was announced that Sewell would receive an Honorary Degree from the University of Nottingham, but in 2022 the institution withdrew the degree after Sewell became "the subject of political controversy."^[33][34] Later in 2022, Sewell was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Buckingham.^[35][36]

In the 2022 Special Honours, Sewell was nominated as a life peer to the House of Lords.^[37] On 16 December 2022, he was created Baron Sewell of Sanderstead, of Sanderstead in the County of Surrey.

Publications

1980s

• Garvey's children: the legacy of Marcus Garvey. London: Voice Communications, 1987.

1990s

• 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.

2000s

• Generating Genius: Black Boys in Love, Ritual and Schooling. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham, 2006.

• Black Success: The Surprising Truth. Swift Press, 2024. Sewell argues that black success is rooted in family, religion, education, hard work, discipline and the property market.^[38]

References

This page was last edited on 4 April 2024, at 18:47