Motion in Support of Professor Hakim Adi and the MRES in the History of Africa and the African Diaspora at University of Chichester.

Goldsmiths ucu log

This motion was passed at GUCU Branch meeting on 04/10/2023

[Amended from the statement of the Black Members’ Standing Committee of the University and College Union (UCU).]

This Branch Notes:

  • Professor Hakim Adi has run the MRes in the History of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Chichester since 2015.
  • The MRes in the History of Africa and the African Diaspora was founded after the 2015 History Matters conference and is unique in England and in Europe. 
  • The University of Chichester has nevertheless stated its intention to close this program.
  • By extension, Professor Adi is facing redundancy, though his employment at the University of Chichester predates the formation of the MRes program

This Branch Believes:

  • The MRes in the History of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Chichester represents a unique and invaluable intellectual environment for the development of Black scholarship in this country.
  • As the first historian of African descent to become a Professor of History in Britain, Professor Adi represents a pioneer in the field of Black history whose teaching reaches under-represented communities within the UK education system.
  • The threats to close the MRes and make Professor Adi redundant are part of the wider pattern of politicised and racialised redundancy programs across the sector that have disproportionately targeted racialised education workers and programs committed to collective liberation. These redundancies are a serious threat to the accessibility of higher education for Black and other racialised groups, to scholars’ capacity to conduct historical research free of reactionary ideological pressure, and to our collective vocation to education. 
  • At Goldsmiths, we know from experience that redundancies of the kind proposed at Chichester empower management to attack the employment rights of all education workers. An injury to one is an injury to all.

This Branch Resolves:

  • To pledge our full support for the campaign to defend the MRes and Professor Adi.
  • To call on our members to sign the petition in support of the MRes and Professor Adi.
  • To call on UCU’s national structures to support Professor Adi, including tangible material support towards legal costs.
  • To contribute GBP300 towards Professor Adi’s legal costs.