David Cameron launches anti-racist plan for UK
DAVID CAMERON has launched an outspoken attack on Britain’s top universities for failing to recruit more black students, saying that racism in the UK’s leading institutions “should shame our nation”.
OXFORD University will be forced to reveal the number of successful ethnic minority applicants as part of a new anti-discrimination drive by the government.
Under Mr Cameron’s plans for universities, they will be required to publish admissions and retention data by gender, ethnic background and socio-economic class.
The prime minister has appointed David Lammy, a member of parliament, to lead a review of the criminal justice system in England and Wales to investigate evidence of possible bias against black defendants and other ethnic minorities.
Writing for The Sunday Times newspaper, Mr. Cameron says that Britain is NOT trying to achieve a “process of total assimilation” but rather, a country where “our shared British values should help us to live side by side”.
Mr. Cameron adds: “It’s striking that in 2014, our top university, Oxford, accepted just 27 black men and women out of an intake of more than 2,500”.
“There was a point a few years ago when there were more young people with the surname Smith at Oxford than there were black students”, Mr Lammy explained.