Statement from BRISMES Council on the loss of Professor Jason Arday

Dear BRISMES community,

We are writing to acknowledge the horror, sadness and rage many of us are feeling over the devastating loss of Professor Jason Arday, and to recognise how this might intensify existing feelings of vulnerability, fear and exposure among members of our community, particularly those who are from the MENA region and/or are racialised in UK academia.

Witnessing the public harassment of a Black, neurodiverse and working-class professor, we cannot separate this moment from the wider context of both entrenched structures of racism and ableism in UK institutions, and the surge of right-wing attacks on racialised academics and their scholarship. For members of BRISMES Council, sadly, none of this feels surprising, particularly after the last three years in which we have sought to defend so many in our community against their increasing vulnerability within UK academic institutions because of their public positions or scholarship on Palestine and imperial projects, and because of their experiences as racialised workers. 

We hope this moment will prompt institutions across UK academia to reflect seriously on how they understand and enact their duty of care towards staff, and to review whether their existing policies and practices provide meaningful protection and support. This must include recognising the particular pressures placed on racialised staff working within institutions where people from the global majority remain significantly under-represented. Institutions should consider not only how they respond when colleagues are experiencing harm or distress, but how their structures and cultures can prevent and address the conditions that produce vulnerability in the first place. 

We know that many of you have been having conversations within your own institutions, as part of building collective support and solidarity in response to this moment. BRISMES will continue to defend our members and our discipline against attacks, but also wishes to help amplify and build on these efforts. We invite our members to reach out with suggestions for how best we could do this, whether by organising an on-line event, creating a space for collective discussion, or finding other ways to support one another and respond together.

Our thoughts are with all those who loved Jason and we send them our deepest sympathies.

Yours in solidarity,

BRISMES Council