White male journalists ruled the BBC's World Service with a "colonial mentality" that embarrassed and demeaned ethnic minority collegagues,an employment tribunal was told yesterday.
An Asian journalist, Sharan Sandhu,51 claimed that she was repeatedly passed over for promotion between 1994 and 1999 because of her race and sex.
the tribunal in central London heard that Ms Sandhu suffered depression and stress at having to endure a "boys'club" culture in which ethnic minority staff were deliberately kept in junior posts.
Ms Sandhu, who joined the BBC as a sub-editor in 1990,said she soon noticed a clear divide between the senior "Oxbridge" middle class and "boozy tabloid journalists" and the more junior hard-working black colleagues.
Ms Sadhu, who is alleging direct and indirect discriminatio ,told the first day of the hearing that her workplace was dominated by white male journalists. "There was a senior layer of white male journalists who were very powerful. They made lots of negative coments which could damage your career.
"There were two types-there were the Oxbridge types who were very arrogant. There were also the tabloid types. There were generally drinking people and it was very middle class. They had a colonial mentality",she said.
This left ethnic minority staff with the impression that "they were seen as OK as long as they stayed in their place"
Ms Sandhu said other staff made derogatory comments about Hindus after telephone conversations with them, sugesting they did not understand what was going on or would make mistakes
She said these comments were made in front of colleagues from other departments to no objections. "No one would pick them up on that and it was embarrassing.
The BBC denies discrimination and the hearing continues.