The union's motion states that it is “institutionally racist”; officer resigns over alleged Islamophobia – The Oxford Student

The Oxford Union Advisory Committee voted earlier today on the motion “Oxford Union trafficking is institutionally racist,” passed at the meeting.

This comes after Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy was disqualified from the Union presidency last night. Several public figures in the Union, including all former colored Union presidents still studying at Oxford, had condemned the proceedings as “contentious, opaque and compromised” in an open letter.

The signatories to this letter included Akolade Ayodeji, Adam Roble, Disha Hegde and Ahmad Nawaz, all of whom are former colored presidents of the Union and constitute the majority of the Union's board of directors. Rachel Haddad Moskalenko, the current secretary of the Union, and Sultan Khokhar, chairman of the Advisory Committee, also signed this letter.

At the committee meeting, graduate nominee Sarah Rana announced her resignation due to the outcome of the Oswan-Mowafy tribunal and the “Islamophobic rhetoric” present within the Union.

Sultan Khokhar, chairman of the Advisory Committee, informed Rana that “any resignation will have to be made in writing”, but expressed support for his public position. Louis Wilson, the union president, also welcomed Rana's public resignation. This was met with applause from all members present at the meeting.

In an email sent to Wilson and the returning officer, Keelan Daye, who The Oxford Student When given access, Rana said she was resigning “with a heavy heart”, but could not “in good conscience symbolically be part of this committee which fails to protect its Arab and Muslim members”.

Rana specifically referred to an event in which a senior union official reportedly said: “we will (eliminate) Ebrahim, he will not appoint a veiled girl as chief of staff.”

She added that the disqualification of Ebrahim Oswan-Mowafy, the first elected president of the Arab Union, was “baseless” and “strongly condemned” the “disturbing Islamophobic rhetoric” within the Union. She said she felt “unsafe, disillusioned, used and extremely disturbed.”

Rana called on “the leaders and members of the Union to publicly condemn these matters”, as well as the court to “reopen an investigation”, and declared that “the Oxford Union is no longer a democratic place of 'ideals of freedom of expression'. .

The Oxford Union has been contacted for comment.

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