Bermuda College president Michael Orenduff yesterday denied claims that his administration is being pressured to protect the jobs of black employees.

"No one in the Government or anywhere else for that matter has said anything to me about protecting the jobs of any particular racial or ethnic group," Dr. Orenduff said.

There had been "no pressure of any sort".

The president was asked to respond to claims by Robert Pires, in a letter to the Editor yesterday, that the "College is under extraordinary pressure from the Government to protect the jobs of black employees in the course of restructuring and reorganising the College.

"You don't have to be a PhD to know that if you have a faculty which is `predominantly' black and you are only allowed to make redundant those who are not black, you will eventually end up with a faculty which is almost entirely black".

Dr. Orenduff said that race had not come up in his discussions with the Education Minister. "I've had discussions with the Minister about restructuring but we've never had any discussion about race. It's not an issue with regard to restructuring."

Mr. Pires, a former College board member, also criticised Dr. Orenduff's comment in a recent Royal Gazette article, that while the College has a legitimate interest in maintaining a workforce that reflects Bermuda's diversity, "it is appropriate that the employee population is predominantly black".

"I certainly stand by what I've said. I think the things that I've said are appropriate and they reflect the values of the College... we don't recruit by race or gender," Dr. Orenduff said.

"When you recruit openly you're going to get a reflection of the population of Bermuda the majority is black and one would expect that's something that I think most Bermudians would support. Most Bermudians would understand and support the idea that we're just going to recruit without regard to these other issues and the result of that is likely to be a diverse employment base."

When contacted Mr. Pires said he agreed that there should be more blacks in the College workplace. But he repeated his claim: "The College is under extraordinary pressure from Government to protect black employees... it seems to me to get around that is by letting expatriate workers be the first to go." And he said that the issue of diversity is "broader" than addressing it in the workplace.

"The issue is how is the College willing to tackle diversity? What are they doing to encourage diversity of education, of understanding with respect to Bermuda's ethnic groups?"