Oxford Union declares itself institutionally racist

The motion passed unanimously


The Oxford Union’s Standing Committee today passed a motion declaring that the Oxford Union is institutionally racist.

The motion, proposed by Treasurer Zuleyka Shahin, follows several days of controversy for the Union after posters advertising a “Colonialist Comeback” cocktail were handed out at a debate last week.

Photo: Isaac Kang

The 3.5 hour long committee meeting was dominated by discussions of the poster: what happened, who was responsible and how the Union could move forward.

The Union were blasted throughout the meeting for the poster, which President Olivia Merrett said she was “disgusted” by.

The committee denied responsibility for the poster, with Merrett saying she found out about the poster at 7.05pm on Thursday and immediately said they ought to be removed. At 8.20pm she was informed by her chief of staff that members were upset about a poster – Merrett thought this was about the first poster, which she thought had been dealt with, when in fact it was controversy about a second poster. This had the same name for the cocktail, but replaced the picture of the hands with one of Colonial Africa.

Merrett said: “I’d like to clarify that I’ve never seen these posters in person, and the first time I saw them was reading The Tab, actually.”

She clarified: “No student or student committee member was involved in the design of the poster.”

Stuart Webber, Librarian and expected candidate for next week’s presidential elections, said as soon as he was made aware of the posters he removed them from the bar.

The second posters, he said, were from Person A – the member of staff deemed responsible for the cocktail, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Webber said: “I said the picture and name were entirely inappropriate, I made that very explicit to Person A.”

Himself and Merrett added that in hindsight, they would have apologised earlier.

The committee passed multiple motions during the meeting. Aside from the above, they condemned the cocktail and poster as racist, and agreed to have another meeting in which a full apology will be drafted up.

Racial awareness training was also requested for all Union staff, and the committee recognised that the members in the room wanted Person A to be told to resign – though nothing can be done on this until lawyers are consulted.

Union rules were also changed so that standing committee will now vote on cocktails and posters.

Merrett also agreed to pursue disciplinary action against former Union officers Mehrunissa Sajjad and Chris Starkey, who made comments about the incident on Facebook.

Sajjad posted: “Don’t know if anyone has noticed but the squirrels in the courtyard have been oppressing international students and perpetuating patriarchy – what’re we going to do about that?”

In another comment, she wrote: “Can you vote on the colour of the walls in future too please? The red in President’s office, for instance reminds me of the operation in Waziristan in my country and it’s V V traumatic.”

Meanwhile Starkey said: “Why the *purple* turtle, what about all the green ones??” Starkey has defended the comment as criticising the Union’s response to the incident rather than the incident itself.

It was also alleged by Barnaby Raine that Sajjad had previously said when rape allegations were made against Ben Sullivan last year that she hoped that when the whole thing was over, she’d pay people to rape the person making the rape allegations.

Merrett said: “I completely condemn what they did…I do know Ms Sajaad to some extent, having worked alongside her in Michaelmas Term, and I am disgusted that she saw fit to comment in that way.”

“I will be investigating what I can do against the members that saw fit to make those comments,” Merret confirmed. Expulsion from the Union was suggested as a form of punishment by those at the meeting.

The feeling in the room after the meeting was one of tentative satisfaction, but disappointment that not more was being done. Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, a Rhodes Must Fall campaigner, said: “On behalf of Rhodes Must Fall we are going to be monitoring carefully how you handle this, and we will call for the President’s resignation and will do everything in our power to make sure that happens if we don’t feel that the steps taken are appropriate.”

After the meeting, he commented: “I think it was a pity that instead of engaging in good faith, the committee initially tried to hide behind legal technicalities to avoid having a genuine conversation.

“Nevertheless, I think the fact that the Union ultimately acknowledged its own institutional racism is a big step forward.

“We will carefully monitor the Union’s other promises and call for the immediate resignation of the President if the Union reneges on any of the commitments it made at the meeting.

“We call on all students committed to tackling institutional racism at Oxford to stand in solodarity with the Rhodes Must Fall movement.”

Merrett said categorically “I will not be resigning”, despite multiple calls for her to step down. She said the decisions taken in the meeting were “starting points”.