The global pandemic caused by coronavirus has highlighted the systemic nature of inequalities caused by racism in Britain: people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups were more likely to be in jobs that had a high risk of exposure to infection, were more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19, and were more likely to die from the virus (Public Health England, 2020). These systemic problems are not of the making of these groups of people, nor are they their responsibility to solve (Winters, 2020). Equal treatment of people is likely to preserve disparities between groups under the well-intended, but misguided umbrella of fairness. In this article, Louise Taylor will share how she began to learn about the issues that contributed to unfair academic outcomes for Black students. She will talk about the findings form a significant research project that she led with colleagues and students in order to explore students' lived experiences of anti-Black racism in higher education. Embarking on this project saw the beginning of a challenging journey in which she learnt more about unconscious biases and the cultural stereotypes that are responsible for embedding this form of racism in higher education institutions and wider society. By sharing her learning and the mistakes and successes she made along the way (hopefully fewer of the former and more of the latter), she hopes is that this article both informs and inspires educational change that promotes racial equality of outcomes both within and beyond classrooms.