Coleman is one of a handful of black philosophy lecturers in the UK. He claims to have been rejected for a full-time job at UCL because his proposed ‘Critical White Studies’ course did not find favour with colleagues wanting to offer a Black Studies programme that was less critical of the white establishment. Much of Coleman’s work focused on university curricula being too white and excluding the writings of ethnic scholars in favour of ‘dead white men’. After his fixed-term contract at UCL ended, he was informed there was no job for him (such precarious positions are more likely to be filled by those who are young, female and from black or ethnic minority groups, as opposed to them being offered permanent roles; for example, 83 per cent of white staff in higher education in 2012–2013 held permanent contracts compared to 74 per cent of BAME staff).50 This was despite what he believed was an outstanding record in teaching and having been awarded Online Communicator of the Year by the university earlier in the year. His application to become a permanent member of staff was rejected, as it would require the creation of a new Black Studies MA, which was deemed unviable. Jonathan Wolff, Executive Dean of UCL’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities, said that the proposed MA was rejected because ‘it became apparent that UCL [was] not yet ready to offer a strong programme in this area’.
But despite the lack of Black Studies courses in UK universities, whatever your degree, as a student, just being at university gives you access to a huge range of broad and engaging texts and resources. Despite my studying law, it was when I chose modules on race and feminism outside of my core curriculum that I fully engaged with learning during my final year, which essentially shaped the views that I have now. Afua did the same, and she speaks of the opportunities that were on offer to – to some degree – create your own curriculum:
‘I started taking African papers and studying postcolonialism and engaging with subjects that were manifesting in my experience, and which gave me access to black professors and black writers and academics and thinkers, and so I had this intellectual community in my head as well.
‘There is a lot of flexibility at Oxford. I was doing PPE; you can choose. There’s such a range of options and I consistently chose options about decolonisation and political theories of equality and race and feminist theories and African studies. So those were the academics who gave me access, and the subjects that I was immersed in, and I think that helped. It helped me reconcile why I was in this place.’
The US is ahead of us in terms of curriculum, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) provide a tailored educational space for black students that may well help in terms of engagement as well as attainment. Even US universities comparable to Oxbridge, such as Harvard, are much more forward-thinking than those in the UK in terms of diversity within the student body. The Harvard University incoming class of 2017 was reportedly the most diverse in its 380-year history – over half of the 2,056 students were non-white. But Professor Emejulu also believes that the US can learn a great deal from the UK.
‘Historically Black Colleges and Universities are a solution in some ways but they were set up in the beginning to serve a so-called “talented tenth per cent”. Those that were closest to whiteness, to be honest, to be quite frank. That history has been somewhat mitigated, but that still is a huge part, an underlying part of HBCUs. But they serve an important function. I think it’s important not to valorise them completely. That’s not to say that the existence of those institutions isn’t important; being pioneers in Black Studies is absolutely crucial, but I guess, I always feel like, I don’t know how much, in terms of the black diaspora, how helpful it is to always be looking to the United States. There were things that were in place here in Britain that have been dismantled that I think have been far more helpful, if we’re looking at this from a black student’s perspective.
‘First, there’s the issue of the maintenance grant. That in and of itself is essential for encouraging people into further and higher education. So I think that personally that has been far more consequential in terms of undermining people’s access to further and higher education. The institution of fees? That’s kind of the story that often doesn’t get told about the American context, so even though there are fees here of £9,000, back when I was an undergraduate in the US, my tuition was $25,000 a year – plus housing and everything else, it was something closer to $30,000 a year. And so, you know, HBCUs are no different from that; they have to charge as well. Also in terms of what can be learned, I actually think, the lesson doesn’t come from the US so much, it comes from South Africa and the movement for decolonisation. I think that has been something that is incredibly consequential in terms of thinking about dismantling the structures that we’ve been talking about; you know, those structural inequalities in terms of the pipeline from school to higher education, the dismantling of ideas of who gets to be a knowing agent, dismantling the idea that only some knowledge counts. Particularly, the knowledge of black women is somehow less valuable and less important. So these movements of decolonisation that began in South Africa have now spread across Europe and North America. For me, those are important models. In fact, the issue here in Britain was that there were key models that helped students in further and higher education that have now been dismantled, and so the thing is, how do we return to that? How do we take back control in that way?’
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‘Told ’em I finished school and I started my own business / They say, “Oh you graduated?” / No, I decided I was finished.’
Kanye West, School Spirit
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Education is hugely valuable, and getting a place at university is a massive achievement. But too many ethnic minority students choose to apply because they feel they have to, or because they believe that if they don’t, they will have in some way failed. This means that many end up on campuses they aren’t quite suited to, studying subjects for the sake of it, unable to make university work for them. One of the biggest takeaways from this chapter should be that doing your research is crucial – not simply so that you learn what your potential uni can offer in the way of courses and facilities, but also that you know what its vibe and culture is. This way you will find out off the bat if it’s somewhere that would suit you, or somewhere you can at least get the most out of. You should explore all your options: in terms of the choice of degrees on offer, the establishments themselves, when you should go, and indeed whether you have to go at all, as that, too, is of course an option. Increasingly, not all vocations require you to have continued into higher education, or at least not full-time. If she had known what she knows now about how her career has turned out, Alexis believes she would have taken a different route:
‘I personally would’ve taken another year out. I would’ve tried to find myself, because when you come out of college, you still don’t actually know what you want to do with your life, you’re still quite young, you’re 18. Coming from an African background, there is a lot of pressure to go on to university as soon as you come out of college.
‘I would’ve done more work experience in that gap year and explored my options and seen what I really wanted to do, then decided to go to university and kill it. I’m back in university now, I went back to do a masters, I’m doing it in business, which makes sense, and I’m excelling. I got a first in my first semester and I never thought that I could ever achieve a first-class – I’ve never ever got an A in my life! It showed me that there’s too much pressure on students to go to university, get a load of debt for a course they have no interest in or that they might change their minds about later on in life. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I realised what I was really passionate about, and it makes sense that I’m excelling in it because it’s what I want to do. I feel like people should just take their time, they shouldn’t feel pressured by society or their parents, even though it’s