UK university’s axing of black studies MA has ‘dangerous parallel’ with US, says academic

Sundus Abdi, The Guardian

Civil rights scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw warns Birmingham City University’s decision part of extremist campaign that has ‘travelled across Atlantic’

A leading US civil rights scholar has urged Birmingham City University (BCU) to reverse its decision to close its black studies course, comparing it to the attack on diversity, equity and inclusion in the US.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles and Columbia University, expressed “profound concern” about plans to withdraw the MA in black studies and global justice, just months after the course was launched.

In a statement shared on social media during her UK book tour, Crenshaw called the decision an “escalating assault on black studies” and an “ideological, extremist-led campaign that has now explicitly travelled across the Atlantic”.

Crenshaw said: “The systematic dismantling of black studies in the United States is mirroring a dangerous parallel in the United Kingdom, where the discipline now faces the threat of total erasure.

Learn about this issue.

More about the dismantling of Black studies in the US.

More news like this.