_{The Centre for Critical Legal Studies (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/research/centres/ccls/) has finally gotten the all clear from the myriad different academic and administrative committees in the University. We have lots of plans and ideas, but we would like to open it out to everyone now, firstly to join the centre, and secondly to help us plan our activities. We don't want to bombard you with information at this stage, so we want to just draw your attention to three things:}

_{1. Events Our plan is to run a small reading group each week on Thursday morning. This will continue on from the R&R group that Stephen has run so well in recent years. The Group will read a mixture of our own work as we prep it for publication and key critical texts. It will be open to everyone who might be interested, including UGs, PGs, sessional staff, professional services, and academic staff. We will be producing notes on the readings which we will start to build into a pedagogic archive. Please pass on details to any students or colleagues who might like to come along. This year it will always be at 10am in S2.09 on Thursdays. Our first reading group is this coming Thursday (the 3rd of October). We will be discussing the Introduction to Christine’s exciting new book. It is attached it here.}

_{2. Membership To join the Centre - for staff - you need to sign into the Warwick website, go to your staff page and click the CCLS in the sidebar. Once it is highlighted you are in. For others, for now, membership is really just attending events, planning events which the centre might be able to help with, or taking part in our other activities.}

_{3. CCLS Day Finally, as far as possible, all events for the CCLS will be organised on one day per week, to help make planning more easy. Thursday will be the key CCLS day this year.}

_{Best wishes,}

_{Illan and Christine}

Title: Success as Pitfalls in Decolonising the University

Abstract: Students from the University of Kent, primarily from the Law School, launched a #DecoloniseUKC Manifesto (www.decoloniseUKC.org/manifesto) on 20 March. The manifesto was created using data collected from student of colour led focus groups aimed at discussing with other students their experiences of being racialized and minoritised subjects at University. The manifesto highlights their key concerns and recommendations going beyond ‘decolonising the reading list’ to discuss how to promote inclusion and counter exclusion as a direct response to the University’s education and student success project strategy on ‘race, identity and belonging’.

We reflect upon the extent to which the University is able to hear concerns around complex issues of inclusion. For example, how does/can a (neo)-liberal institution implement its Prevent duty and yet address Muslim students’ increasing sense of being isolated as the hostile environment infiltrates campuses in a myriad of subtle as well as explicit ways? What does ‘belonging’ mean in this context and how is it conceptualised in relation to corporate factors including attainment targets, falling student numbers and increasing marketization? How, and to what extent, can the ‘decolonising the curriculum’ project as a ‘first of its kind’ collaborative project between academics and students materialize ‘change’ in the face of racialized capitalist co-optation and exploitation? Following on from this we also explore the process of amplifying and empowering student voices to become change actors through collaboration and co-production with academics. We ask how can this collaboration exist, continue to thrive and sustain through material, alternate ways of building, developing and keeping the ‘trust’ between the students and the academic staff? Specifically, what are the responsibilities members have to each other including in relation to dynamics of power, gender and position? We draw on critical pedagogies and practices emanating from critical race and decolonial theories to explore the potential for this kind of ethical work to endure in unethical times.