Anti-Blackness and Anti-Racism in Law: How Can Students Organise to Pursue Change?

Over the past several months, many have sought to confront the scourge of systemic racism and racial injustice in our legal community. These collective efforts have invigorated discussions about how to pursue action and reforms at the University of Oxford.

In 2016, the Faculty of Law was prompted by a collective of Black and other graduate students of colour to address the issues of anti-Blackness in the Law Faculty. This resulted in the Faculty committing to the implementation of 10 actions. While some action has been taken since 2016, the Faculty in June 2020 noted that it has not made meaningful progress on several crucial actions, including establishing a forum for Black students and students of colour, providing suitable mentors, hiring Black scholars, and establishing more funding opportunities for Black graduate research students and students of colour. 

As such, there is a need for all students in the Faculty to rally together, to form a collective effort to advocate for the implementation of these 10 actions and to build upon the existing efforts to meaningfully tackle anti-Black racism at the Faculty. 

We, therefore, invite all law students, early career researchers and Junior Research Fellows, across races, who are interested in organising, supporting, or learning about anti-Black racism efforts to attend a student-led Faculty-wide Zoom call on Thursday, July 30th at 16:00 BST to discuss what actions we, as students, can pursue to advance anti-racist work across the Faculty.

The call will be an open forum in which students across the Faculty can share ideas about what actions we can pursue and how we can be effective allies in the long-term.

If you would like to attend, please register online with your university e-mail address by Wednesday, July 29th. You will receive a Zoom link to the meeting on the day of the event.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to the Anti-Racist Collective at: anti-racism@law.ox.ac.uk.