Law and Race talks: '#RaceMeToo: Institutional Declarations of Anti-Racism, But Are They Listening, Do They Care?'

Speaker: Professor Mindy Chen-Wishart, Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford

After the murder of George Floyd, institutions around the world have been quick to self-certify as anti-racist. It is easy to denounce the crassest forms of racism happening everywhere; but much harder to see and address our own institutional and individual behaviours that perpetuate more subtle forms of racism. Every racialised minority can detail innumerable instances of racist treatment conscious or unconscious, small or large, that cumulatively inflict significant injuries to their persons and their circumstances. We all have unconscious biases; to deny it is an oxymoron. Will we do the uncomfortable work of listening to racialised minorities, transcending our subjectivity, and working towards justice and flourishing for all?

Professor Mindy Chen-Wishart is Dean of the Faculty of Law at Oxford University and a Fellow of Merton College. She holds a fractional Professorship at the National University of Singapore and has been the Cheng Yu Tung Visiting Professor, Hong Kong University. She has also visited and taught at Law Schools in Asia, Europe, and Australasia. She is author of Contract Law (7th ed), and of numerous articles on the theory, doctrine, and comparative law of contract. Mindy was a member of the Advisory Group on A Restatement of the English Law of Contract and has lectured to the Judicial College of England and Wales, and the judiciary in Hong Kong. She is an Editor of Chitty on Contracts (now 34th ed), and of the six-book series on Studies in the Contract Laws of Asia, of which the first four have been published.

(The drinks reception will begin at 6:15pm and continue after the talk). All welcome.

This event is a hybrid event. If you are in Cambridge, please do join us in the Faculty. To attend online you must register via Zoom.

Register to attend remotely

For further information, please contact the convenors, Dr Kirsty Hughes (kh391@cam.ac.uk) and Vandita Khanna (vk347@cam.ac.uk).