A report by CRaB member and postgraduate researcher Carlus Hudson.
On March 16th, University of Portsmouth Student Union hosted a panel event “Liberate My Degree”. It brought students, academics and activists together as part of wider National Union of Students campaigns on the BAME attainment gap in higher education and lack of diversity in university curricula. This event continued the union’s “Race in Your Face” campaign from last academic year that highlighted ways in which communities perpetuate racial prejudice and discrimination. Members of the panel were Aadam Muuse (Black Students’ Officer – National Union of Students), Dr. Olivia Rutazibwa (Senior Lecturer in International Development – University of Portsmouth), Dr. Charles Leddy-Owen (Senior Lecturer in Sociology – University of Portsmouth), Kavushik Mohan Raj and Lianne Walters (students).
This panel event was one of many that have taken place on campuses across the UK, reflecting the indignation felt – especially by BAME students, lecturers and other university staff – at racism and colonialism embedded in higher education. The fallout from Brexit has provoked a sense of urgency among anti-racists, but the BAME attainment gap and the eurocentrism of what’s taught at universities reveal that racism and colonialism run far more deeply in British society. Paul Gilroy’s After Empire: Convivial Culture or Postcolonial Melancholia? – written over a decade ago but more relevant now than ever – details a cultural failure to come to terms with the British Empire, a preference for erasing the parts of this history that don’t fit the agenda of continuing the neo-colonialist project today. We live in a society where Mary Seacole can even be considered to be removed from school curricula, while a statue of Cecil Rhodes still stands at Oxford University. A government minister sets trade policy that even his own staff dismiss as ‘Empire 2.0’. University authorities often look towards the most limited solution that “problematises BME staff and students, and places the burden on them to improve ‘diversity’ and represent marginalised groups. The problem with these measures is that firstly, they isolate the experience of BME students and staff even more, and also establish ‘tokenism’.
Aadam Muuse covered many of these issues in the opening speech. After that the event opened up and had a great deal of participation from the audience, with the panellists having a more minor role to chime in on the room’s discussion. Many issues were covered such as the need to decolonise rather than diversify the curriculum and the responsibility of educational institutions to address eurocentrism. Experiences of racism were shared.