Eliminating racism in education for knowledge organisation and library and information science: an intercontinental position statement

In this paper, we begin to take stock of the current landscape of antiracism initiatives in LIS and KO in France, the UK, and the USA. This exercise firstly identifies patterns of racism and racial prejudice on our campuses which are insufficiently addressed—and even potentially worsened—by current national and institutional policy and legislation. Secondly, the accreditation of LIS and KO higher degree programmes allows different degrees of antiracist material, ranging from essentially none to not enough, and we have not yet identified an example of an accreditation process which fosters more than a predominantly reactive approach to eliminating racism in KO or LIS as a whole. Thirdly, we regard Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a means of knowledge creation to include the widest possible range of sources and voices, a rigorous approach we can use to identify and remove previously inequitable hierarchies within our discipline.