Towards an anti-racist pedagogy: contextual practice on race in public law

Movements to "decolonise the academy" have gained much attention since the Rhodes Must Fall protests in 2020, where Oxford University students called for the removal of the Cecil Rhodes statue from Oriel College, viewed as a symbol and glorification of British imperialism. Students in other universities also gathered under the "decolonising" banner to raise consciousness of how colonialism has shaped knowledge production in academia and remained embedded through a Eurocentric curriculum and the so-called canon. Students at my own university (Kent), also formed a decolonising collective (Decolonise UoK) in 2018, producing a manifesto of action points for senior leadership, resources for staff and support including events for students. The work was featured as a sector leading case study in the Universities UK and National Union of Students (NUS) joint Closing the Gap report. Along with the students involved, I (as academic lead) delivered talks and trainings around the country and we co-authored a book on antiracist and decolonial praxis within higher education (HE). The book includes the research undertaken by the students with contributions from (academic) colleagues across the sector who supported them and the wider movement. Further requests from teachers for support and guidance flooded in and were varied in their reasons for engaging us, whether as part of doing antiracist work within their individual law schools and/or triggered by an interest in the buzz of the wider decolonising the curriculum movement within HE. This need led me to write up an accessible resource entitled Towards Anti-Racist Legal Pedagogy, funded by the Socio-Legal Studies Association.