The Duchess of Sussex has a very personal connection to an important campaign that she is currently supporting, which aims to help young people in education. The Duchess is backing a campaign to add more black and female thinkers and writers to the curriculum, in a move to confront racism and sexism in university campuses. During a visit to City University earlier this month, Meghan's enthusiasm for supporting this was very clear. After being presented with a sheet of data showing that UK professors were overwhelmingly white men, she reportedly reacted by saying: "Oh my god!" This passionate reaction is likely down to Meghan's own experiences while growing up, which she later addressed in an article…
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© Photo: RexMeghan visiting City University earlier this month
Writing for Elle magazine in 2015, Meghan explained: "My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I'm half black and half white." Continuing to describe how her biraciality affected her during school, she continued: "There was a mandatory census I had to complete in my English class – you had to check one of the boxes to indicate your ethnicity: white, black, Hispanic or Asian. There I was (my curly hair, my freckled face, my pale skin, my mixed race) looking down at these boxes, not wanting to mess up, but not knowing what to do." Meghan added: "My teacher told me to check the box for Caucasian. 'Because that's how you look, Meghan,' she said. I put down my pen. Not as an act of defiance, but rather a symptom of my confusion. I couldn't bring myself to do that, to picture the pit-in-her-belly sadness my mother would feel if she were to find out. So, I didn't tick a box. I left my identity blank – a question mark, an absolute incomplete – much like how I felt."
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Speaking to The Sunday Times this week, Dr Meera Sabaratnam - who delivered a speech in front of the Duchess during her visit to City University, said: "[It was] wonderful to see the Duchess standing up for female equality", adding: "Many of the issues around racial equality are similar and it is great to see her embrace this. Change is long overdue."
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