Your Experiences

The UdK Berlin has committed itself to creating equal opportunities for all its members, regardless of gender, age, skin colour, appearance, social and cultural background, sexual identity, religious affiliation, nationality, psychological and physical constitution. This goal has not yet been achieved.

Because of this, on this page there is the possibility to report experiences of discrimination anonymously. The reports will show us what kind of discrimination occurs at the UdK Berlin, including for example disadvantaging, stereotyping, degrading or excluding. In an upcoming diversity policy, we are developing measures to make the UdK Berlin an equitable, diverse and inclusive place that engages with differences considerately and respectfully. Your experience reports will help us to identify the problem areas and pursuit the necessary changes.

Since all experiences shared here are made anonymously, we are unfortunately unable to respond to them personally. However, we are working on improving the support services at the UdK Berlin, including making them more diverse. Individual counselling is currently provided by the Women’s Representative (Frauenbeauftragte) and the members of the Confidence Council (Vertrauensrat), which offer protection in cases of (sexualized) discrimination and violence; as well as the AStA Department for Intercultural and Anti-Discrimination and the Students’ Initiative I.D.A. These instances can be contacted at any time and ensure confidentiality. Beyond these, there are other contact points within and outside the UdK.

Contact Points for Discrimination at UdK Berlin

What does discrimination mean?
Discrimination means the unequal, disadvantageous and excluding treatment of individuals or groups, on the basis of actual or ascribed group-specific characteristics without objective reason. Discrimination can be carried out by both individual persons (individual discrimination) as well as structural conditions (institutional discrimination).

I have experienced discrimination and am looking for advice and support. Who can I turn to?

For Students and Employees

Counselling for students with disabilities and chronic diseases
Barrier-free studies

Person of trust for the severely disabled
Barrier-free working

Chancellor
Complaints office according to § 13 of the General Equal Treatment Act

Support against Discrimination and Violence
Complaints office in accordance with the directive on protection against (sexualized) discrimination, harassment and violence

Full-time women’s representative
Sexualized discrimination, harassment and violence

Part-time women’s representatives of the faculties and institutes
Sexualized discrimination, harassment and violence

International Office
International students/employees, students/employees abroad

Deans of Studies
Program related issues

By Students for Students

AStA - Department of Social Affairs
Social applications, housing allowance, BAföG, studying with child

AStA - Department for Anti-Discrimination and Intercultural Affairs
International students, equal opportunities, discrimination

AStA - I.D.A.
Intersectionality, Diversity, Anti-discrimination

For Employees (administration, teaching, research)

Staff Council
Representation of interests of the employees

Management of the personnel department
Personnel administration and development

Company physician
Health protection

I would like to file a complaint. How do I proceed?

Simple Complaint
(Confidential recording of the incident by the Board of Trustees)

  • Documentation of the incident by the Board of Trustees (confidential)
  • Information on further support
  • Advice on the formal complaints procedure

Formal Complaint Procedure
(Informing the complaints office, possible initiation of sanctions)

  • The Chancellor takes up the complaint
  • Written statement of the defendant within 14 working days
  • Conversation of the chancellor with the defendant
  • The university management decides on measures and sanctions

General Equal Treatment Act

Gender Binary

Diversity Policy

Dominance Culture

Gender Identity

Institutional Discrimination

Intersectionality

Classism

Culturally Argued Racism

Marginalising

Neurodiversity

Racism

Sex-Gender-Difference

Sexism

Sexual Orientation

Social Origin

Socioeconomic Status

Structural Discrimination

White

Ableism

Adultism

Ageism

Cis

Doing Gender

Inter*

PoC

Queer

Third Mission

Tokenism

Trans*

Ende

General Equal Treatment Act

The General Equal Treatment Act (AGG) is the uniform central body of regulations in Germany for the implementation of four European anti-discrimination directives. For the first time, a law was created in Germany that comprehensively regulates protection against discrimination.

Gender Binary

Imagination of a gender system that consists of only two categories, male and female. Assignment beyond which is only allowed, if at all, only as a deviation from the norm – hides the following: gender, sex, desire, performance.

Diversity Policy

Differences in values, attitudes, cultural perspective, beliefs, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, gender identity, abilities, knowledge and life experiences of each individual in each group of people should be considered and overcome within the university.

Dominance Culture

The concept according to Birgit Rommelspacher assumes that there is a system of hierarchies, rule and power in which the various racist, sexist and other forms of government intertwine. In this interconnectedness, a dominant group has the power, which is socially negotiated again and again.

Gender Identity

the personal idea of one‘s own gender and one‘s own gender role. Within society, gender is the concept according to which we classify various ideas such as social status, gender presentation, role in society, life planning and sexuality into the gender categories.

Institutional Discrimination

Discrimination based on the organisational actions of institutions. Institutional discrimination is not present in society as a whole.

Intersectionality

In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of discrimination, its individual forms of discrimination must not be considered independently of each other, as they are interrelated.

Classism

Discrimination based on the value of economically and educationally unequally strong classes. This is related to discrimination and stigmatisation based on actual or assumed educational status and social inclusion. Thus, the inferior classes in the hierarchy are problematised and stereotyped.

Culturally Argued Racism

Culturally argued racism is directed against people who, regardless of whether they actually practice one culture or religion (e.g. Islam, Judaism) and how religious they are. (e.g. anti-Muslim racism (AMR) and anti-Semitism)

Marginalising

Describes a displacement of minorities to the social fringe. As a rule, marginalised groups do not correspond to the norm-oriented majority of society and are severely restricted in their ability to act.

Neurodiversity

Describes the basic assumption that thinking and brain structures function individually. A medical norm and the disease mongering of everything supposedly divergent is called into question.

Racism

Discrimination based on ones ethnic roots.

Sex-Gender-Difference

The conceptual distinction between gender as a biological fact (sex) on the one hand and as a product of cultural and social processes (gender) .

Sexism

Any form of discrimination against people on the basis of their (attributed or supposed) sex and the ideology underlying these phenomena.

Sexual Orientation

A person‘s sexual orientation describes which sex a person feels emotionally, physically and/or sexually attracted to.

Social Origin

System of socio-cultural values and norms into which one is born (environments and classes), e.g. Educational biography, social inclusion. Values are constructed.

Socioeconomic Status

System of socio-cultural values and norms into which one is born (milieus and classes). e.g. Educational status and social inclusion. Values are constructed.

Structural Discrimination

Discrimination of social subgroups based on the nature of the structure of society as a whole.

White

This term is not a self-designation, but a description of a reality of people who do not experience racism. white is written in small italics and reveals privileges, which are often not named as such. So the term is not about skin shades, but about the visualisation of different access to social resources.

Ableism

Negative assessment of body and mind due to abilities and skills. An evaluation pattern based on a supposed biological (physical and / or mental) norm.

Adultism

Discrimination e.g. in everyday life and law based on unequal power relationships between adults, children, adolescents and young people.

Ageism

Skills and abilities are questioned and rated due to ones age.

Cis

Cis or cis-gender refers to people who identify with the gender assigned to them at birth. If this were not named, trans * would always be marked as the deviation of a given norm.

Doing Gender

This term focuses on how people observe, (re-)produce and make gender relevant in everyday life.

Inter*

Inter * are persons born with physical characteristics that are medically considered to be „sexually ambiguous“. The generic term Inter * has evolved from the community, and refers to the diversity of intersex realities and physicalities as an emancipatory and identitarian umbrella term.

PoC

Is a self-designation to unite people affected by racism and to fight together against power relations such as racism.

Queer

In English, ‚queer‘ was used as an insult for a long time. In the meantime, however, the term is usually used positively as a self-designation and describes the breaking out of the two-gender order as well as heteronormative concepts of life.

Third Mission

Reciprocal interactions as a multi-dimensional approach between the university and the non-university environment, which also includes the cultural, social and political dimensions on an equal footing.

Tokenism

A superficial gesture to include minority members. It is intended to create an appearance of inclusion and to divert allegations of discrimination by requiring a person to be representative of a minority.

Trans*

„Trans“ is a Latin prefix, meaning beyond and refers to people who do not identify with the gender assigned to them at birth. The self-designation is not an identity feature that automatically indicates whether this person identifies with a different gender, gender or multiple genders. Thus, there are several trans identities.