Collegial Governance or where antiracism goes to ‘die’? Antiracist Organizing on Campus

Over the past ten years, we have witnessed a remarkable surge of anti-racist advocacy and policy change within universities on Turtle Island. This is largely due to the work of activist students, staff and faculty relying on the 94 Calls-to-Action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the demands by social movements fighting against anti-Black racism. More recently, the silencing and censorship of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the rest of Palestine has re-ignited calls for greater inclusion in higher educational institutions. While well-meaning, contemporary institutional policies and practices within universities are failing to usher in the much needed systemic reforms that have a material impact on the lives of Black, Indigenous, and racialized peoples, along with other marginalized communities such as queer and trans people.

This paper asks: why are university initiatives to combat racism failing?

Relying on race scholarship, I offer a narrative account of institutional experiences in demanding systemic change by faculty, students, and staff. Through counter-storytelling, I will narrate my experience in engaging in anti-racist advocacy within the University of Windsor Faculty of Law. My counter-story allows for several rich theoretical claims that harken back to Derrick Bell’s "interest convergence" and Ambalavaner Sivanandan’s "disintegration" and fragmentation. Using interest convergence, disintegration, and fragmentation, I argue that collegial governance results in the ‘death’ of antiracist demands within the university.

Sujith Xavier LLB., LLM., PhD., is Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies & Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Windsor. Sujith’s research spans domestic and international legal theory, including Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), transitional justice and Canadian public law and racialization. He is one of the co-editors of Decolonizing Law: Indigenous, Third World and Settler Perspectives (Routledge, 2021). He is currently co-editing a special issue on race and racialization in Canada for the Journal of Law and Social Policy. Sujith is a founding member of the Editorial Collective of Third World Approaches to International Law Review (TWAILR.com). He is active in the legal profession as a member of the Law Society of Ontario, and he has significant experience working with grassroots organizations in Sri Lanka. Sujith has appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada and the Canadian Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal. At the Faculty of Law, he teaches Public International Law, Administrative Law, and Race & the Law to JD students.

In March of 2018, Sujith was the recipient of the University of Windsor Outstanding Faculty Research Award. In 2015-2016 & 2022-2023, he was the recipient of the University of Windsor Faculty of Law Students' Law Society Teaching Award for teaching excellence.