Interview: Equality Studies Module Coordinator Kathleen Lynch

Image Credit: UCD

UCD Professor Kathleen Lynch shares her 30-year-long journey of bringing Equality Studies to UCD, and sits down with Business and Careers Editor Vanshika Dhyani to talk about systemic racism, allyship and education.

Born in County Clare, Dr. Kathleen Lynch is a professor of Equality Studies at University College Dublin. She has dedicated her life’s work to bringing critical race theory into the cultural and academic landscape of Ireland. 

“Change does not come generally from the centre. It comes from the periphery. And I suppose that's what led to Equality Studies in its first instance a long time ago,” says Lynch.

In the 1980s, Lynch started working with a group of like-minded individuals towards a shared goal of introducing Equality Studies to the country. The aim of this movement was to introduce scholarly works of writers from underserved communities and “create a space for intellectual development, and critical thinking and transformative action within the university.”  The group wanted to educate people and create resistance to conventional ideologies of inequality in society. 

The lack of representation and diverse cultural narratives at university was painstakingly apparent; academics from under-served social hierarchies did not have a seat at the negotiating table.  “[I] have always felt that the university is in danger of being a coloniser,” said Lynch, referring to the homogeneous nature of education in the country, dominated by Eurocentric literature. As Lynch noted, “We didn’t even notice that we weren’t reading Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth. We weren’t reading, you know, Bell Hooks. We weren’t reading any of the African scholars. We weren’t reading their writings. We weren’t teaching their literature.”

Volunteering their time, the Equality Studies Working Group started running night time courses to encourage students to undertake a part-time postgraduate degree. The classes were held from 8pm to 10pm to accommodate working students. For over ten years, Lynch continued to teach these classes and work towards her goal of seeing “[Ireland] become a more equal and socially just place.” Lynch believed that her students “wanted to be agents of change” and that “they wanted to have an impact on society.” 

“[For] a lot of people, the academy is just a career; it's just a way of life, you know. But for others, it's a way of making a difference, and I suppose that has been the foundation of my entire academic life.” said Lynch.

It wasn’t until 1990 that UCD saw its first cohort of Postgraduate-level students in Equality Studies. It was UCD President Dr Patrick Masterson (1986 – 1993) who supported this drive for reform and marked the beginning of a new era for the university. It was a long winding road to establishing the first postgraduate program in Equality studies, which ultimately resulted in the development of UCD’s Equality Studies Centre (1990), the formation of the UCD School of Social Justice (2005) and the more recent introduction of the country’s first module in Black Studies (2018).

In 2018, Dr Ebun Joseph launched ‘Black Studies and Critical Race Perspectives in Education,’ which was facilitated by Lynch, who, in fact, attended all the lectures. “In that first year, I think there were 38 or 39 students that we had in the course, and I'd say about 34 of them were Black. I never attended a class in UCD where the vast majority of students were Black before that year. It was an education in itself,” she said.  

Lynch calls for a systemic change and structural reform in academia and other sectors of the society, advocating for a National Action Plan against racism. This action plan will provide an extensive framework to address issues related to race and colour. Lynch recalls a powerful moment with Joseph: “I remember Ebun saying to me - I've never forgotten, she said, ‘I was not Black until I came to Ireland. I wasn't Black.’ And I think that says it all.” 

Lynch hopes that UCD will eventually offer a degree in Black Studies and anti-racism, “And people like Ebun and people who are Black will be the people who will control the story. Because people like me can facilitate and enable things, but we don't have the same experience, we don't have the same background; we haven't lived the pain.”