Universities 'need race targets'

British universities should set targets for achieving racial equality in terms of academic recruitment and promotion, according to a new report. Tariq Modood and Steve Fenton, of Bristol University, argue that race equality should be accorded the same priority achieved in gender equality in recent years. Their report, produced for several agencies including higher education funding councils and the Commission for Racial Equality, stops short of the affirmative action policies found on US campuses. They say that short or fixed-term contracts, increasingly popular with universities over the past few years, highlight the racial disparity. Forty-eight per cent of non-white British academic staff are on fixed-term contracts compared with 34 per cent of whites.

Martin Trow, page 18 Features, pages 20-21