ABSTRACT
In 1985, when he was still Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, Peter Newsam called for ‘a concerted effort to reduce the level of racial discrimination’. Having set out his programme of what needed to be done — a mixture of voluntary effort, contract compliance and stronger law enforcement — and having acknowledged the valuable progress made by many organisations and individuals, he concluded that ‘the task of … providing equal opportunities for all citizens is certainly not beyond reach. What remains in question is the strength of society's commitment to bring it about.’ 1 His words have even greater force today, when we have ten more years' experience of the workings of equal opportunity policies and antidiscrimination legislation.
