Leading article: Put simply, racist

Sometimes it takes a single phrase to make clear what had been cloudy. The finding that "a compelling case can be made for the existence of institutional racism in schools" in Britain is a good example. As The Independent on Sunday reports exclusively today, that is the phrase chosen by the authors of a government report - not yet published - on why black boys are so much more likely to be excluded from school.

In the report - Getting It. Getting It Right - written for the Department for Education and Skills, the authors agonise over whether to use the term "institutional racism", aware of the reaction it could provoke. In particular, they fear that it might demoralise teachers in the way that many blameless police officers were offended by its use in the Macpherson report in 1999. The phrase was made famous by the report on the Metropolitan Police's handling of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Yet its use in that case undoubtedly had a dramatic effect on attitudes and organisation in police forces throughout the country. It is to be hoped that this report can achieve a similar beneficial change in the education system.

The central message of the education report is simple. There are only two possible explanations for the fact that black boys are three times more likely than other pupils to be excluded from school. One is that their family background or street culture makes them badly behaved. The other is that schools treat them differently. Clearly, there may be some truth in both explanations. The key question is the balance between the two. The authors of the report conclude that "in-school" factors are more important than "out-of-school" influences. What really matters, they say, is "largely unwitting but systematic racial discrimination in the application of disciplinary and exclusions policies".

This has been half-known since at least the 1960s. There is now ample evidence that black boys are more likely to be disciplined for less serious misbehaviour than either white boys or black girls. Yet much of the attention of policy-makers has been on "out-of-school" issues such as the allegedly dysfunctional role of fathers in Afro-Caribbean culture. It is to be hoped that the new report will, by bringing clarity to an issue confused by muddled thinking, administer the shock therapy that is required.

Many people, we accept, have their doubts about the concept of institutional racism. It seemed to include everything from an overtly racist "canteen culture", through the operation of unconscious assumptions held by police officers who regarded themselves as anti-racist, to the weakness of institutional rules and structures designed to ensure equal treatment.

Yet the Macpherson report prompted huge changes in attitudes that have transformed the police service over the past seven years. Had the authors of the education report pulled their punches, there might have been a few expressions of ministerial concern and promises to tighten up rules and guidelines. What is required above all, though, is a change in attitudes throughout the school system. The difference will be made by teachers and head teachers being aware that there is a problem of discrimination, and doing all they can to make sure that the same disciplinary standards are applied rigorously to all pupils.

If it takes the rough justice of the phrase "institutional racism" to achieve that end, its use in this report will be well worth it.

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