Education & The Race Industry

I was going to say something about this story, but I got sidetracked by a story from last year which I had missed when it first came out. Essentially the situation is that the Commission for Racial Equality have discovered that for some reason, black pupils are statistically under represented at Britain's leading universities, or as the Guardian puts it 'Black students are failing to get their share of places at Britain's top universities', I had up until now been unaware that there were shares of places belonging to each ethnic group. Phillips then does his jobs and spouts all the race industry cliches:

' Trevor Phillips, chair of the CRE, said it was now "beyond doubt" that segregation was taking place between British universities.'

'"This survey also gives a new meaning to institutional racism'

Before hilariously adding almost as an afterthought:

Mr Phillips suggests much of the trend is down to inequalities in school results

Gee Trev you think it might just have something to do with the school qualifications which been attained? It is almost as if the elite institutions attract the students who have achieved the highest grades for some crazy reason! Anyway what can be done to redress this gross injustice?

But in areas where ethnic minority students are severely under-represented, the CRE could recommend a system of cash incentives for universities to "make minority-friendly courses more worthwhile for our top universities", Mr Phillips said.

What exactly are 'minority friendly courses', I mean if Phillips weren't the head of the CRE I would suggest that there is almost an undercurrent of soft racism in assuming that academically rigourous subjects are not 'minority friendly' and the likes of Oxbridge & Imperial College ought to be replacing courses in physics or modern languages with lightweight 'ethnic studies' courses that exist at many US institutions.

As this week's Joseph Rowntree Foundation report demonstartes white boys from poor backgrounds do as bad or worse than most of ethnic minorites and several groups including the Chinese and Indians do extremely well, the divide in educational outcomes in Britain is quite plainly not a racial problem. Of course it is in the interest of those in the racial aggravation business like the CRE to pretend otherwise, because racial divides are their lifeblood.