Dr Karla Perez Portilla
Lecturer in Law
Department of Economics and Law
PhD in Anti-discrimination Law, University College London; MSc in Equality and Discrimination, Strathclyde; and Licenciatura en Derecho LLB, Mexico (UNAM). I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
My career has combined international academic experience and practical involvement in anti-discrimination initiatives and wider social justice issues working with the public and third sector in Scotland. I have designed, delivered and evaluated prejudice reduction programmes and educational initiatives mostly funded by the Scottish Government.
Themes have included guidance to the Equality Act 2010; hate crime awareness and third-party reporting; mainstreaming anti-sectarianism into equalities; evaluation of See Me as a social movement, Scotland’s national programme to end mental health stigma and discrimination; and Challenging Discrimination in Mainstream Media. The latter was a community development course based on my latest book, Redressing Everyday Discrimination. The weakness and potential of anti-discrimination law (Routledge 2016).
I have been a member of the Equality and Diversity Committee of the Law Society of Scotland and a Mental Health Foundation Trustee. From February 2021 I have been a member of the PRG, Professional Reference Group of Police Scotland. A small and focused group established to support learning and offer challenge, discussion and advice on equality, diversity and human rights matters pertinent to the Sheku Bayoh Inquiry.
I have been a key contributor to Police Scotland’s recognition of institutional racism and its commitment to becoming an anti-racist organisation. My work in this team has allowed me to offer my existing expertise and to further understand and respond to the challenges faced by a complex and highly scrutinised organisation.
I have brought and enriched my Equality, Discrimination and Social Justice expertise at GCU through the roles I have occupied as Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Champion, EDI representative for the Economics and Law Department and, from September 2024, I am the Glasgow School for Business and Society EDI Lead.
My teaching at GCU has included a range of modules and topics directly related to my areas of research and expertise across the LLB and within postgraduate programmes including the MSc in Human Rights and MSc in Human Resources Management. Topics include Equality and the Law, Hate Crime and in particular Hate Speech, International Feminisms, Employment Law, International Perspectives on Intersectionality and Discrimination as a Multifaceted Problem. I designed an LLB Hons module on Social Justice, Equality, Discrimination and the Law, which offers a solid basis for a career in EDI.
Before joining GCU, I worked in Mexico for the Institute for Legal Research (IIJ-UNAM), taught at the University of Strathclyde, Faculty of Education and at University College London, Faculty of Law. I am a bilingual academic and have regularly written and presented at Spanish-speaking public sector and academic forums including the Centre for Constitutional Studies of the Supreme Court of Mexico.
I am a member of the International Network of Hate Studies and the International Media Lawyers Association.
My research profile includes a range of publications in English and in Spanish on themes of equality, discrimination, media (mis)representations and hate speech. I have also authored and co-authored various research reports and guides for public and third-sector organisations.
My research interests include institutional discrimination, institutional racism, anti-racist approaches, intersectionality, identity politics, multidimensional theories of justice, social movements, freedom of expression, hate speech, hate crime, critical, feminist, and socio-legal approaches, coproduction and action research.
I am the Director of Studies of Lucy Mackay who is investigating the harm in public misogynistic harassment and the appropriate responses.
I am also part of the supervisory team of Rianna Raymond-Williams, Seonaid Stevenson and Dionne Revie. Rianna’s research explores How Black Caribbean women experience sexual and reproductive health care (SRH) in the UK. Seonaid’s research is about sexual offence lawyering in Scotland, and Dionne is researching cases concerning critically ill children and the disputes that emerge between parents and healthcare practitioners.