LONDON, Feb. 3 BBC executives are looking into a job advertisement that allegedly violated Britain's Race Relations Act by focusing on certain races.
The employment advertisement said the makers of a new BBC2 science program were looking for a "young, zany Oriental or Asian person with a science background," the BBC reported Sunday.
One BBC source identified the program in question as "Tomorrow's World Lite," which is scheduled to hold auditions in London this Wednesday.
Any job advertisement that is proven to favor one or more racial groups is in violation of the Race Relations Act 1976 unless the person's race or language is vital to that production.
But the BBC said the new program has no specified agendas and therefore an official inquiry has begun.
An Equality and Human Rights Commission spokeswoman said her group would also look into the matter should it receive a related complaint.
"If a complaint was made to us about this we would take it very seriously and look into exactly what the message said," the unidentified spokeswoman said.
Copyright 2008 by UPI
