Case in point: "In the Russell Group universities, black and Asian students are under-represented, as are women in the sciences. Only 6.6% of students at these universities in the decade to 2006 were black Caribbean or African. BME staff are also underrepresented, comprising only 6% of academic staff. Yet managers are increasingly more concerned with attaining an excellent performance in the REF exercise than they are in promoting equality and diversity. In the university sector, as elsewhere, female and black workers have been disproportionately more vulnerable to the impact of the recession, and the gender pay gap is now widening again. Women are crowded into less secure, less well-paid jobs in new universities. Only 42% of permanent academic posts are held by women, while men are four times as likely as women to be professors. And in Russell Group universities, only 38% of academic staff are women." http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/apr/22/university-jobs-not-being-advert