Opinion Campuses need to address discrimination. Supreme Court’s stay on UGC equity regulations shows why that is harder than it looks
If the equity framework can help institutions learn how to do that, it will have served its purpose. Regulation was inevitable. Its success will depend on the process
Time was rarely neutral in these stories. Delay often favoured the institution (Express Photo by Vishal Srivastav) Universities have a sound of their own. It is not the noise of classrooms, protests, or convocation speeches. It is the quieter sound of students arguing over tea, sitting on staircases long after lectures end, discovering ideas and friendships at the same time. Anyone who has studied in a university and later returned as a teacher knows this rhythm well. It is also in these informal spaces that students begin to articulate discomfort they never put in writing. “Sir, I do not know if this counts as discrimination,” a student once told me, “but I feel invisible here.” There was no incident that followed, no complaint, only a pause that carried more weight than any formal file ever could.
Our campuses have lived with such pauses for a long time. Discrimination in higher education has rarely arrived as a single dramatic moment. It has accumulated slowly through being ignored in classroom discussions, receiving feedback that explains nothing, or sensing that some students belong more easily than others. Institutions, as sociologists often note, inflict wounds not only through rules but through habits.
It is this lived reality that the University Grants Commission’s Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions Regulations, 2026 sought to confront. The regulations apply to every higher education institution in the country and speak with unusual firmness. Institutions are required to establish Equal Opportunity Centres, Equity Committees chaired by the head of the institution, round-the-clock helplines, equity monitoring mechanisms, and designated ambassadors across hostels and departments. Discrimination is defined broadly, not only by intent but by effect, by whether dignity and equality are impaired. The message was clear. Silence was no longer acceptable. Equity was no longer optional.
Why the UGC regulation became inevitable
These measures did not emerge in isolation. Our higher education reached this point after repeated institutional failures. The Thorat Committee, constituted in 2007 following reports of caste discrimination in the AIIMS, showed how exclusion rarely took the form of explicit rules. It appeared instead in grading patterns, mentoring relationships, laboratory access, peer networks, and everyday academic culture. Later inquiries, often triggered by student suicides in central universities, offered the same conclusion. Discrimination was cumulative, psychological, and structural.
There was also an institutional inevitability at work. Over the last decade, courts themselves had repeatedly acknowledged the persistence of caste-based exclusion on campuses while noting the weakness of existing grievance mechanisms. The 2012 regulations recognised discrimination in principle, but relied heavily on internal discretion, producing uneven and often symbolic compliance. As constitutional concern accumulated without an effective institutional response, regulation ceased to be a matter of policy preference and became an administrative obligation. In that sense, the 2026 regulations were less an expansion of power than an attempt to give institutional form to concerns long acknowledged in law.
The 2026 regulations reflected a state that had lost patience with hesitation. Equity was no longer framed as a counselling concern or a moral aspiration. It became a binding administrative obligation, backed by monitoring requirements, reporting duties, and serious sanctions. The framework did not emerge from executive impulse alone. Draft regulations were placed in the public domain, examined by parliamentary committees, and revised after consultation with universities, faculty bodies, and civil society. Provisions that risked deterring complaints, including a clause discouraging so-called false complaints, were consciously removed. What finally took shape was an attempt to translate long-standing constitutional unease into institutional design.
For many students, particularly those from marginalised backgrounds, this shift offered reassurance. Over the years, I have seen students decide not to complain because the process felt opaque, slow, or unsafe. Time was rarely neutral in these stories. Delay often favoured the institution. From this perspective, the promise of timelines, helplines, and visible structures mattered.
Where unease begins
At the same time, for those who live inside universities every day, a quiet unease remained. Not because equity was unwelcome, but because processes shape campus culture as much as outcomes do.
The regulations moved quickly. Once information was received, Equity Committees were required to meet within 24 hours. Reports were to be submitted within 15 working days. Action had to follow within a week. Given how delay has historically worked against complainants, urgency is understandable. But discrimination cases are rarely straightforward. They involve power, perception, academic discretion, and long histories of interaction. When inquiries move too fast, they risk flattening context and leaving all sides dissatisfied.
Research on procedural justice consistently shows that people care deeply about how decisions are made, not only about what decisions are made. Students often seek recognition before resolution. They want to feel that the institution has taken time to understand their experience. When processes appear rushed or mechanical, they can feel transactional, as though the objective is closure rather than understanding.
This concern deepens when authority is examined. Under the regulations, the head of the institution chairs the Equity Committee and oversees implementation. Even when complaints involve the head, the structure remains largely internal. Our campuses have struggled with this design before. Committees lose credibility when decision-making and institutional self-interest sit too close together. Safeguards such as independent members, external investigators in complex cases, and clearer separation between inquiry and enforcement are not procedural luxuries. They are what make students believe the process exists for them.
Fear of misuse and the question of trust
It was in this atmosphere that protests emerged, claiming that the regulations operate as a law against upper castes and that backward groups would misuse the framework. These anxieties deserve to be addressed seriously rather than dismissed. Universities are fragile communities, and trust matters.
Legally, however, the claim does not hold. The regulations are facially neutral. They do not create caste-specific offences or presumptions. Any student, faculty member, or staff member can be an aggrieved person or a respondent. Liability turns on conduct and effect, not identity. A framework does not become discriminatory merely because it responds to historical patterns of exclusion. Constitutional law has long recognised the difference between formal equality and substantive equality.
The fear of misuse is also not new. Our courts have repeatedly held that the possibility of misuse cannot be a reason to dismantle protective frameworks. The answer lies in safeguards, not abandonment. The regulations provide layered processes. Complaints are examined by multi-member committees. Reports must be reasoned. Criminal law is triggered only where a prima facie offence exists. More importantly, the assumption that upper caste automatically means accused misunderstands how power operates on campuses. Power flows through seniority, institutional position, language, networks, and authority, not caste alone.
What the Court’s stay tells us
These underlying concerns came into sharper focus when the Supreme Court placed the 2026 regulations in abeyance. The Court expressed prima facie reservations about vagueness and the potential for misuse, and suggested that the framework be reconsidered by a committee of eminent jurists, while allowing the earlier 2012 regulations to continue in the interim.
Importantly, the Court did not question the reality of discrimination on campuses or the need for institutional mechanisms to address it. Its concern lay in design and process: How harm is defined, how authority is structured, and how quickly institutions are required to act. The stay should be read not as a rejection of equity, but as a reminder that regulation without procedural care can undermine the very legitimacy it seeks to build. The lesson here is not that equity regulation was misguided, but that its design must command confidence across constituencies.
Universities teach more than syllabi. They teach students what happens when power is questioned and discomfort is voiced. Equity enforced through fear, paperwork, or hurried compliance will not endure. Equity built through a fair, careful, and credible process has a better chance of being believed.
The student who told me she felt invisible was not asking for punishment. She was asking whether the university could see her clearly. If the equity framework can help institutions learn how to do that, it will have served its purpose. Regulation was inevitable. Its success will depend on the process.
The writer is an academic lawyer and a former Adjunct Professor (Law) at Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad
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