Affirmative Action in the U.K.

The United Kingdom's Commission for Racial Equality is calling on Oxford, Cambridge, and the other 17 traditional universities in England to admit more black students. The commission is urging this group of universities to select black students ahead of white students with the same qualifications. A spokesman for the commission said that it is not seeking to impose racial quotas. Its recommendation is simply that "if you have a black student and a white student with equal qualifications at the front of the admissions queue, we want the university to take positive action to choose the black student first."

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