Motion in support of MA Black British History
This motion was passed at our branch meeting on 27/08/2025. Full text below:
Motion in support of MA Black British History
This branch notes that:
a) Offer holders on the MA Black British History received an email on Tuesday 22 July informing them of the suspension of the programme. They were invited to defer their place to 2026/27 entry, switch to MA History or another programme within the college, or withdraw their application. They were encouraged to contact the programme convenor, Kesewa John if they had questions about the programme.
b) The college continues to exacerbate, rather than learn from and implement changes to prevent, unequal outcomes of college processes, which is an institutional failure highlighted by the equalities impact assessment of the transformation programme.
The Programme Convenor was neither informed of the impending suspension of the programme in September prior to the decision being communicated to offer holders, nor included in the decision-making process. They became aware of the suspension only upon receiving a forwarded complaint from an offer holder posted on social media.
The college has failed to provide an adequate account for this failure. Explanations have ranged from admissions for 2025 were in fact suspended in September 2024 based on admission trends then, to application numbers were too low to make the course viable in summer 2025.
This failure is merely the latest attack on a young but high-profile programme. Thousands of people signed a petition in support of the programme when it was threatened with closure in summer 2024 when the convenor was selected for redundancy as part of the Transformation Programme.
This programme’s content, and associated staff and students meet extraordinarily well Goldsmiths’ commitment to curriculum decolonisation, and the institution’s own race justice strategy, and post-GARA commitments. Yet its staff have been repeatedly exposed to and targeted for redundancy processes. Given it has only one compulsory module, which can be taken by students on MRes History, running the programme with no minimum requirement requires less resource than recruiting and cancelling at the last minute.
The college has failed to engage with a meaningful review of the programme with the programme convenor. It has steadfastly refused to accept that this is a programme which launched just before the pandemic, and is housed in a department whose academic staff numbers have been reduced from over 20 to approximately 7 in two rounds of redundancies in less than 5 years. These external factors have not reduced the public interest in the course.
The physical and mental health of tutors on this course has historically been severely impacted by the disproportionate allocation of resources to some subject areas and programmes. Namely under-resourcing, opaque workload allocation, and the overburdening of minoritised staff. This is a serious health and safety issue compounded by ineffective action on equalities issues already identified.
The ongoing failure of College to take positive and meaningful steps on equality and diversity issues that featured heavily in the ACAS-mediated negotiations of August 2024, and the threats the Transformation Programme posed to the future of vital and developing areas of pedagogy and research – including postgraduate pathways such as MA Black British History, MA Black British Literature, and MA Queer History – were seen as being very serious and necessitated the inclusion in the 2024 Dispute Resolution Agreement of a commitment on the part of College ‘To work with GUCU on delivering mutually-agreed equality and diversity issues’.
The dispute resolution agreement committed Goldsmiths “To work with GUCU on delivering mutually-agreed equality and diversity issues”. However, in reality, elected GUCU officers and members of POD have met only once to progress this commitment, and it has not been possible to agree Terms of Reference to undertake this work.
The lack of engagement from the employer around the aforementioned equalities commitment, particularly in the context of the decision not to run MA Black British History without consultation with relevant staff and GUCU, constitutes a breach of the previous dispute resolution agreement. This has been communicated to the College by the UCU regional official.
This branch believes that:
College’s treatment of the staff, students and scholars, and subject area of MA Black British History outlined above is symptomatic of the current chaotic and incompetent management at Goldsmiths and encapsulates its ongoing failure on equalities, and specifically on race justice. A failure which is embodied by the selection and redundancy of the previous chair of Goldsmiths’ Race Justice Board.
College’s breach of the previous dispute resolution agreement is unacceptable and must not be permitted to stand.
It is unacceptable for programmes to be closed without meaningful dialogue with convenors and tutors. At the last minute or generally.
The manner in which the convenor discovered the suspension of admission is outrageous. That no explanation could be offered for weeks, no meeting with the convenor possible until September and applicants have been given misleading information is indefensible.
The failure to understand the reality behind the numbers (two new applicants does not equal two students on the course’s only mandatory module), suggests that decisions to close programmes are being taken without any attempt to understand how they work in practice.
This case is another example of managerial power-grabbing.
The manner of suspension of MA Black British History enables redundancies in the near future. Elected GUCU officers have a mandate from the branch to resist compulsory redundancies; if no agreement is reached, the branch will be in a position to move into dispute with support from the regional office and the national union.
This branch resolves to:
Call on College to resolve the breach of the 2024 dispute resolution agreement and avoid further escalation by:
Guarantee the MA Black British History will be run in 2026/27 immediately.
Exempting this programme from numerical student targets for a period of five years.
Committing to working meaningfully with the convenor of the MA to secure the future of this subject area at Goldsmiths, and acknowledging and supporting the ecosystem developed for Black history and historians at Goldsmiths.
Committing to resourcing the growth of this subject area in conjunction with similar work and initiatives across Goldsmiths.
Ensuring that workloads are assigned which reflect the demands of rebuilding and running a high profile programme.
Ensuring that DRT is attributed to scholars with high admin demands; it is unacceptable for staff to serve for five years without any DRT ever taken.
Making available to UCU a list of all programmes where a decision has been made for them not to run in the coming academic year. This list is of great significance to us when understood in terms of the current cost-saving measures underway, and the employer’s continued refusal to commit to no compulsory redundancies for the next academic year.
Meeting as a matter of urgency with GUCU representatives to discuss how College will demonstrate its commitment to the terms of the dispute resolution agreement.
Goldsmiths University and College Union
© 2025
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