Universities and the Colonial Production of Knowledge About Students of Colour

If there is one feature that distinguishes the twenty-first century UK university from its earlier appearances it is the number of laws which are now woven into its fabric. These range from state imposed ‘hard law’, such as the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, to the ‘soft laws’ - which usually take the form of government sponsored investigations, policies and guidance. This chapter argues that university ‘soft laws’ are creating an archive of knowledge about students of colour which, whatever their ostensible design, serve to perpetuate, not to dismantle, the colonial structures of the university. Consisting of a close reading of official documents such as Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Student Attainment at UK Universities: Closing the Gap (2019) and Degree Classifications: Transparent, Consistent and Fair Academic Standards (2018), the chapter shows how contemporary methods of acquiring and disseminating knowledge about students of colour reproduce older colonial archival practices, leading to their further marginalisation.