Warwick Anti-Racism Society says uni has “completely ignored” calls to rename Radcliffe

Following Warwick University’s response to the open letter put forward by seven university societies and SU representatives, Warwick Anti-Racism Society has issued a statement from the signatory societies to The Warwick Tab, arguing that the University gave an “inadequate response” to their demands.

Further to the open letter, Warwick Anti-Racism Society launched a campaign to ‘#Rename Radcliffe’, dedicated to renaming the conference centre on campus which is named after Cyril Radcliffe, the first Chancellor of the University of Warwick.

The University did not make any comment on the campaign in their letter to the Cultural and Liberation Societies, and the seven societies’ statement describes the response to their demands as “mediocre and lacklustre”.

The open letter outlined eight demands for Warwick, including an investigation into racial profiling by security services at Warwick, training staff in anti-oppression, and the creation of a report system for complaints about racism.

Below is the full statement from the seven societies who signed the initial open letter:

“The member societies of the Warwick demands are outraged and disappointed with the inadequate response received by Warwick in regards to our demands and their mediocre and lacklustre approach to dealing with the issues we have both highlighted and offered tangible solutions to.

The University of Warwick merely detailed actions they were already taking irrespective of our demands, and completely ignored many of our other demands including, renaming Radcliffe and actually looking into racial profiling of Campus security.

We will be releasing, on our social media, a comparison of what Black students of Warwick demanded from Warwick and what Warwick university are offering.

– Statement from all seven societies”

The open letter was signed by over 400 black students at Warwick, while the ‘#RenameRadcliffe’ campaign garnered differing responses from students at the University on social media.

Warwick University declined to comment, stating that they had nothing further to add to their previous statement.

Feature image credited to SWNS.

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