'Sport in the Dock' with Professor Ben Carrington
- A Discussion -
Tuesday 25th September, 6.30 - 9.30pm, The Institute of Education, (Nunn Hall, Level 4) 20 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AL
The Runnymede Trust invites you to a seminar led by world leading authority on sports and race Professor Ben Carrington of the University of Texas at Austin.  The talk and following panel discussion from leading figures from the world of sport, journalism and law, will be of interest to anyone wanting to make sense of the interconnections between race, sport and law. 
 
With the conclusion of the John Terry trial, in which the Chelsea and England footballer was found not guilty of racially abusing Queens Park Rangers’ Anton Ferdinand, the issue of racism and football, and of racism in sport more generally, has once again returned to public attention.  An urgent set of questions arise concerning the role of the law in regulating social behaviour and the extent to which legal remedies should be used in the fight against racism in sports.  Many commentators have argued that the Terry-Ferdinand case should not have ended up in the courts at all – where a higher legal bar of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ exists – and that such incidents should be dealt with by the appropriate sports governing bodies.  But how committed are such institutions to the fight against racism and do they themselves fall foul of what William Macpherson’s Inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence referred to as ‘unwitting racism’?  How far have sports really progressed in eradicating racism from the playing fields, terraces, dressing rooms, and the executive board rooms?  Do the sportsmedia (print, radio and television) themselves deserve more critical attention.  What forms of racism and antiracism are being produced by new social media such as Facebook and Twitter?  Given these developments, what might we learn from other countries such as the United States of America where more pro-active forms of ‘affirmative action’ and legal redress have been used to challenge both individual and institutional forms of racism?  Anti-racist campaigning, often utilising existing laws, seem to have been effective in addressing some of the more overt forms of racism in sports, but have such ‘successes’ obscured the complexity and on-going reality of racism in the twenty-first century?  Given the importance of sports in society and the continuing examples of racism across a range of sports, do we now need a Macpherson-style Inquiry or Public Commission into the topic of racism in sports in Britain? This event seeks to put many of the recent controversies concerning racism and sports into a broader historical perspective, to address the central question of how the law can be more effectively used to challenge racism today, and finally to outline what actions fans, players, governing bodies and the legal system need to take moving forward.
 
There are limited spaces for this free event so please rsvp early to [log in to unmask] to avoid disappointment. Once you receive email confirmation your space is confirmed, entry will be permitted only to those names on the email response list. This seminar is produced by Moore Development Consultancy and David Neita Elect with support from The Runnymede Trust, The FARE Network and The Institute of Education. 
 
Please see video of our previous free event: http://www.youtube.com/user/runnymedeTrust?feature=watch
For more details see:  http://www.farenet.org/default.asp?intPageID=7&intArticleID=2895