University Of Edinburgh’s To Have Minority Communities In Pivotal Role

The review panel, involving experts from a range of disciplines, are seeking to include as many voices as possible in the two-year consultation to ensure a community-led approach.

Community organisations, heritage bodies and groups engaged in reparatory justice initiatives are being invited to join students, staff and alumni in sharing their perspectives.

The wide-ranging review is set to make a series of evidence-based recommendations by the end of 2024 that will inform future University policy.

Research team
The academic Race Review will be led by Professor Tommy Curry, Personal Chair in Africana Philosophy and Black Male Studies, and Dr Nicola Frith from the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures’ Department of European Languages and Cultures.

They are working with a team of dedicated researchers who will trawl historical archives to build the clearest picture yet of the University’s involvement in the Atlantic slavery economy and colonialism.

Among the initial findings are records from the UK’s oldest debating society, The Diagnostic Society of Edinburgh, uncovered by researcher Dr Simon Buck. He has found that while the society was in favour of boycotting sugar produced by enslaved people in the 18th Century, some members may have gone on to make money from plantation slavery.

Dr Buck will also explore how specific disciplines within the University of Edinburgh – including the School of Medicine – were entangled in the trafficking and enslavement of Africans. Meanwhile Dr Yarong Xie will run an in-depth survey exploring the current attitudes towards race and experiences of racism within the institution today.

The project – Decolonised Transformations: Confronting the University of Edinburgh’s Legacies of Enslavement and Colonialism – is set to be one of the most in-depth and wide-ranging reviews of its kind. Events involving community representatives have begun to take place, with more planned throughout the year.

We have reached a crucial stage of the review, and Edinburgh is in a position to work in a way unlike other institutions by approaching reparations and reparative justice as a community-led process. It is, of course, essential groundwork to conduct historical research and establish the facts. But the process of engagement needs to be part of the reparatory work itself. In this way, we cannot pre-empt what will be said or the actions that the University will take at the end of the process. However, we will continue to share our work, and encourage members of the community to participate and create a culture in which we can all thrive.

Professor Tommy Curry
Co-leader of the review and Personal Chair in Africana Philosophy and Black Male Studies
The University’s previous work in this area has included a review of its curriculum, improving the representation of Black and Minority Ethnic students and staff, and promoting an anti-racist culture on campus.

Edinburgh’s work in this area will be academically-led, sector-leading, conducted with integrity and will strengthen us as a global institution. The review will look back into the University’s history in order to find collective ways to forge our future.

Professor Sir Peter Mathieson
Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh