Lammy Slaughters Oxbridge Over Admissions ‘Whitewash’

Labour MP David Lammy has blasted Oxford and Cambridge over their admissions policies, pointing out shocking deficits in the number of offers made to black, lower class and Northern students.

Some of the shocking stats to come out of the recent six month investigation into Oxbridge admissions under the Freedom of Information Act include:

– Only one British, black Caribbean student was admitted into Oxford last year.

– Oxford (89%) and Cambridge (87.6%) admit many more than the 64.5% national average of students from the top 3 socioeconomic groups.

– Students from the London borough of Richmond get more than eight times the number of offer that students from Rochdale, Hartlepool, Barnsley, Middlesborough and Stoke got combined in the last four years.

David Lammy

As well as exposing these facts, Lammy accused the unis of providing “patchy data” and challenging “valid requests”, claiming they should be “ashamed” of the figures.

An Oxford spokesman retorted that many black students apply for the most oversubscribed courses like Medicine and Economics, while Cam hit back that 15% of students taken in last year were from minority ethnic backgrounds.

Some of Lammy’s claims have also been shown to be wide of the mark. His wild claim that Cambridge “doesn’t employ a single black academic” was easily disproved.

His rantings about admissions equality at Oxbridge is just the latest in a string of protests about fair education in response to the Browne Review. Cam students are set to demonstrate against proposed education reforms outside Parliament tomorrow after the Old School occupation ended yesterday.