Oxford University diversity row: 'Grades aren't enough' | Education | The Guardian

Oxford University diversity row: 'Grades aren't enough' | Education | The Guardian: There has only been one moment in his three years at Oxford when Stephen Bush felt uncomfortable about race. That was in a tutorial about the US president Thomas Jefferson, who believed black people were inferior to white.

Bush, who is reading history at Balliol college, said: 'Every time one of the students quoted from his letter they would look at me really nervously, but I just found it funny. Some people here come from some quite rural places and have to get in the car to buy some milk, let alone see a black person.'

Oxford's record on diversity is under the spotlight this week after the prime minister described his alma mater's admissions figures as 'disgraceful'. But for black applicants to Britain's oldest university, the barriers can be as much about class as race – a failure by state schools to prepare pupils for interview, or a damaging lack of confidence compared with private school candidates.