MORE than 300 delegates were in the city yesterday for a national conference on equality and diversity organised by John Moores University.

The event, entitled Diversity, Today and Tomorrow, was chaired by Aigburth’s Sir Bert Massie CBE, who was instrumental in the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

Other keynote speakers included Dr Abdul Bari MBE, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain and Karen Chouhan, who was a guest of Rev Jesse Jackson at Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Sir Bert, who is now vice chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: “The greatest risk we all face today is that we have done so much and made great progress in equality that we think there isn’t anything left to be done, while a lot of people are still suffering.

“We have seen attacks on Muslims after the 7/7 attacks and anti-Semitism with the Israeli/Gaza conflict, we haven’t washed out prejudice and violence from society.”

He added: “On disability, we have made huge progress, but we need to check things are continuing, for example ensuring all new trains are accessible. We also need to address the 50% of disabled people who are out of work compared to the 80% of non-disabled who are in work.

“Disability, like race, gender, faith and other factors can still be used as variables for discrimination.”

Dr Bari gave an address about religion, belief and equality with an emphasis on education helping community cohesion.

He said: “There is still a huge debate as to what extremism is and what defines British values. The Government is still looking at counter-terrorism.

“As a teacher, there is concern among schools about guidelines given to teachers to look for ‘telltale signs’ of extreme views, but what about spying on the children. There needs to be a shift away from Muslims and other groups being perceived as a problem, this is totally counter-productive.”

Karen Chouhan, who has spent her life shaping race-related policy and challenging prejudice, said inequality was linked to economics.

Her work with Rev Jesse Jackson, and Equanomics UK, is hoping to improve the economic prospects of minority communities as a means to readdress social inequalities.

She said: “Living in poverty means you don’t have access to education, health services and employment which sometimes means people end up committing crime

Ms Chouhan believes the key to equality is through local communities taking control and feeding upwards into the system.

She added: “This conference has been great because it’s brought together lots of people and organisations, and forged links so we can work together in the future.

“I’m pleased Sir Bert is here and I hope he will take back some of our thoughts to the Equality and Human Rights Commission who might be influenced by what we have to say.”

laurasharpe