Racial exclusion at Oxbridge exposed by FOI
A bleak portrait of racial and social exclusion at Oxford and Cambridge has been shown in official data which shows that more than 20 Oxbridge colleges made no offers to black candidates for undergraduate courses last year, reports the Guardian today.
The university’s admissions data confirms that only one black Briton of Caribbean descent was accepted for undergraduate study at Oxford last year.
One Oxford college, Merton, has admitted no black students in five years – and just three in the last decade.
More worryingly, it reports:
But the FoI data shows white students were more likely to be successful than black applicants at every Cambridge college except St Catharine’s, where black candidates have had a 38% success rate, compared with 30% for white students.
There is also some data on social exclusion.
Figures revealed in requests made under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act by the Labour MP David Lammy also show that Oxford’s social profile is 89% upper- and middle-class, while 87.6% of the Cambridge student body is drawn from the top three socioeconomic groups. The average for British universities is 64.5%, according to the admissions body Ucas.
David Lammy has also written an article for the Guardian on the issue.
His office also sent us the FOI data.
Here are some more details:
There is a huge disparity in the success rates of Black applicants at different Oxford and Cambridge colleges:
• Oxford: 84 applications from Black students to Keble college resulted in 25 acceptances (a success rate of 30%) over 11 years. 64 applications to Jesus College over the same period resulted in just 5 acceptances (a success rate of 8%).
• Cambridge: 13 Black students admitted from 34 applications to St.Catharine’s College (38% success rate) over 7 years. 4 Black students admitted from 45 applications to Christ’s College (9% success rate) and 6 from 67 applicants to Churchill College (9% success rate) over the same period.
• Oxford: Black students can have less than half the chance of a White student (St. Catherine’s and St. Edmund Hall) or the same chance (Keble) over 11 years.
• Cambridge: Black Students can have as much a 1/4 of the success in applying as White students (Robinson), or a better chance than White students (St. Catharine’s) over the course of 7 years.
On applications to both universities:
Cambridge:
• Over the course of 7 years (2003-2009), Hertfordshire students submitted 3,211 applications to Cambridge. Over the same period, Knowsley submitted none, Blaenau Gwent submitted 6, Rochdale submitted 22 and Barnsley 33.• Even within short geographical distances, there are huge variances between applications levels. The London Borough of Barnet submitted 1239 applications, Hackney just 40.
• The Top 11 LEAs are all South of Birmingham
• The London Borough of Barnet submit more applications per annum than the City of Birmingham.
Oxford:
• Similar to above – Six English counties submit more applications than the whole of Scotland.
How we’re ending the law to bring foreign criminals to justice
Last year the Israeli politicians Tzipi Livni MK was advised by her government not to visit Britain as she was at risk of being arrested on suspicion of involvement in war crimes. An experienced magistrate, with expertise in international law, had issued a warrant to detain Ms Livni after being persuaded by a private applicant that she had a case to answer.
Israel condemned Britain in strong terms and politicians of all stripes opined that our ability to conduct diplomacy had been impaired. None of this was true.
Tzipi Livni was here to fundraise, and had she been here for diplomacy she would have been immune to arrest. Now the Coalition is delivering for them.
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Is it always a ‘sell out’ to discuss difficult issues?
The discussion following Cath Elliott’s response to John B’s piece on Julian Assange has mostly been about the rape allegations themselves. But I think there are broader issues here that I want to touch on.
On Twitter earlier she said in response to me:
… is seeing how fast so-called leftie feminist men are to jump in and defend him and paint women as bloody liars again
That’s the misogynist shite I was talking about before. The way left wing men always sell out women in the end.
I won’t get into how patronising an accusation this is because it has become far too common an accusation on the left.
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PCC admits: Richard Littlejohn is a bullshitter
A couple of months ago, Primly Stable put in a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission over what, for Richard Littlejohn, appears to have been a typically ill-informed and misleading rant in which he claimed that ‘”any Afghan climbing off the back of a lorry in Dover goes automatically to the top of the housing list“.
Littlejohn’s claim is not only wildly innaccurate but relates to an issue on which the PCC has previously seen fit to issue additional guidance to editors as follows:
“The Commission – in previous adjudications under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code – has underlined the danger that inaccurate, misleading or distorted reporting may generate an atmosphere of fear and hostility that is not borne out by the facts.”
So you’d imagine that Primly’s complaint would be something of a formality and lead, almost automatically, to Littlejohn getting a bit of slap on the wrist.
But no, this is what the PCC has actually had to say:
The complainant considered that the article falsely stated that “Afghans climbing off the back of a lorry in Dover” were given precedence in the allocation of council housing.
The Commission acknowledged the complainant’s concern over the statement; however, it had to consider the remark in the context of the article in which it appeared. The article had been clearly presented as a comment piece, in which the columnist expressed his concern that a soldier who had served in Afghanistan had not been granted a council house. The Commission considered that the columnist had exaggerated and simplified the example of housing immigrants for the purpose of stressing his assertion that the “system of government exists simply to punish those who do the right thing”. It emphasised that the newspaper should take care when using such rhetorical methods of expression that readers would not be misled into understanding that they reflected statements of fact.
In this instance, on balance it considered that readers would be aware that the columnist was not accurately reflecting the government’s policy on the housing of immigrants, but that he was making an amplified statement for rhetorical effect. It was therefore the Commission’s view that, on this occasion, readers generally would not be misled in such a way as to warrant correction under the terms of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code of Practice.
So what the PCC is saying, once you cut through all the waffle is that, in its opinion, Littlejohn is such a prolific bullshitter that even the Daily Mail’s readers cannot be expected to take his opinions seriously.
Now I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but then I’m also not inclined to underestimate the stupidity and ignorance of the typically Daily Mail reader.
It is, nevertheless, quite an interesting innovation on the PCC’s part, albeit one that should, in the interests of clarity and transparancy, be full reflected in the text of the PCC’s Code of Conduct.
I suggest the PCC put in place is an official register of bullshitters, a formal list of media columnists and commentators whose opinions are known to be so routinely unreliable that the PCC will no longer entertain complaints about the accuracy of their remarks on the grounds that their status as a prolific bullshitter is a matter of common knowledge.
The arguments made against WikiLeaks are fatuous
contribution by Cory Hazlehurst
First of all, it seems deeply hypocritical for any government to get santimonious about leaks. Governments leak all the time: everything from unattributable briefings to lobby journalists, all the way to “dark arts” such as disinformation.
It used to be the case that the details of the budget were kept secret before being announced by the Chancellor in the House of Commons. Now the main details are usually briefed to some political correspondents beforehand, so the markets know the salient details and no announcement is too much of a shock.
These abuses had been going on perfectly well for years. What people hated was being told about it. (Sir Humphrey Appleby, The Compassionate Society).
Govt clamps down on tax dodgers; @UKuncut win?
The Treasury has today announced a series of measures to clamp down on tax avoidance in the UK.
A press release offers some information:
Two measures with immediate effect will tackle tax avoidance by:
- preventing groups of companies using intra-group loans or derivatives, to reduce the group’s tax bill, and,
- addressing schemes where a company does not fully recognise certain amounts in its accounts involving loans and derivativesThree measures with further detail to be set out shortly, will tackle tax avoidance through:
- addressing the practice of disguised remuneration,
stopping investment companies retrospectively changing the currency they prepare their accounts in for tax purposes, and,
- tackling businesses who artificially split the supply of services to reduce VAT.In addition to these measures, the Exchequer Secretary has asked Graham Aaronson QC to lead a study into a General Anti Avoidance Rule (GAAR).
I’m sure this has nothing to do with the growing movement to highlight tax avoidance, which was all over the newspapers over the weekend.
Nevertheless, the sums they claim will be saved are paltry.
They say the measures will protect forecast revenues estimated at up to £5billion over the next 4 years, and “are expected to raise” over £2billion in additional revenue during the course of this parliament. Just £2bn? Lame.
This is a poor sop, though it’s a start.
The campaign group 38 Degrees is also starting its own campaign on Tax Avoidance, today unveiling a poster of George Osborne as the Artful Dodger (pictured).
Growing campaign to save school sports
The range of people campaigning against the decision to abolish School Sports Partnerships and end funding for the Youth Sports Trust must have surprised the government. Its certainly produced uncertainty round the cabinet table.
On Tuesday night last week David Cameron said the government was going to “look carefully” at the issue, with the Telegraph reporting that the funding to be made available was “believed to be” £100 million – more than half the £162 million saved by the cuts.
But then the Department for Education began counter-briefing that
David Cameron is taking a close interest in the issue but that is not a U-turn. The decision around the £162m and the sports strategy has been made and will not be reversed.
Ministers seem to be worried by the unusual coalition that has come together to defend school sports – including Paralympic and Olympic medallists, famous professional sportspeople and people involved in School Sports Partnerships who were upset at Michael Gove’s criticisms.
Young people themselves have emerged as leaders of this campaign. Debbie Foote, a 17 year old from Lincolnshire is the Chair of the “Young Ambassadors”, who work with the partnerships and the Youth Sports Trust to increase participation in school sport.
She distributed petitions to all 450 Partnerships, who then circulated them to every school – where the teaching unions have helped promote them – and set up “Young Ambassadors Saving School Sport” on Facebook, which was followed by “Save School Sport Partnerships”.
Tomorrow her petition – predicted to have half a million signatures – will be carried on a walk to Westminster by leading athletes and young people to be handed over in Downing Street.
Why the Facebook campaign on child abuse is misguided
Nothing quite brings out my more miserly and rancorous qualities like a Facebook campaign. And the ‘cartoon character’ campaign is no exception.
For those of you yet to have the displeasure, the campaign asks Facebook users to change their profile picture to a cartoon character in order to prevent child abuse. Or raise awareness about child abuse. Or just remind us that ‘abusing kids is bad LOLZ!’
I wasn’t clear on the detail.
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Letter: police cuts to hit the front line
Policing leaders said plans to impose the heaviest spending reductions straight away will “damage” the front line and have urged the cuts to be phased in more gradually, The Daily Telegraph discloses today.
It will further fuel fears that drastic cuts will overstretch officers and lead to a rise in crime.
It comes as a number of police forces have already announced plans to cut officer and staff numbers as a result of the Home Office announcement that funding will be slashed by 20 per cent over the next four years.
But in a cross-party letter, the Association of Police Authorities (APA) has urged Nick Herbert, the policing minister, to reconsider how the cuts are introduced.
Will any Libdems rebel on tuition fees vote? Here’s a list
I have been taking a look at how individual Lib Dem MPs are likely to vote on tuition fees next Thursday.
Looking at all the indications available, I concluded that the MPs fell into four loose categories. I have listed 14 likely rebels, 14 waverers, 8 of no stated position, and 3 backbenchers who are likely to support the Government.
The best source on this is the blog of Tim Starkey, a Lib Dem councillor who is co-ordinating the rebels.
continue reading… »
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