David Lammy, MP for Tottenham and the UK’s minister for innovation, universities and science from 2007 to 2010, has called for a centralised admissions system at elite institutions like Oxford and Cambridge in order to admit greater numbers of black and ethnic minority students.
In an interview with Times Higher Education editor John Gill at the recent Times Higher Education Teaching Excellence Summit, Mr Lammy also said that although universities “will take some flak” for being forums of free speech, he doesn't “see them as in the pockets of liberal progressives”. And in “the age of populism” Mr Lammy called on academics to "stand brave and tall and communicate quite strongly the dangers that could lie ahead for the global world".
