The general Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010 for the public sector comes into force this week (5/04/2011) and places three broad requirements on the public sector including on colleges and universities.
Basically there is now a general duty placed on colleges and universities to pay regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, promote equality of opportunity, and foster good relations in the areas of age, disability, race sex and other protected characteristics under the Act (s149). This general duty will be complemented by specific duties which aim to aid institutions in compliance with the general duty but these have yet to be finalised and are not expected to be in place until later in 2011.