Andrews’ hero is Malcolm X. So he will utterly reject being on any Power List. Or even the premise of a Power List. Andrews’ academic and public mission is to challenge established institutions which he argues are inherently structurally and systemically racist – chief among them universities.
There’s clearly a case to answer: there are only 25 black woman and 85 black men among the 18,000-plus professors in the UK and stark racial inequalities in degree attainment, graduate earnings, pay gaps, and career progression.
For Andrews, however, the answer is social change – rather than treating the symptoms, through better representation or widening participation or kicking out racist students or staff.
That’s why he fought for and launched Black Studies at Birmingham City University in 2017 – the first in Europe. Institutions such as universities are incapable of reforming society, he argues. But academics like him have a platform and responsibility to equip others to be agents of change, building wider radical, organic, activist movements.
And it’s clear Andrews is tapping into a wider mood on campuses: the Why Is My Curriculum White? and Why Isn’t My Professor Black? campaigns at UCL; #rhodesmustfall at Oxford or demands to decolonise English at Cambridge. HE’s leaders will reach a point when they can no longer ignore all this. Something big is stirring.