In October 2017, Professor Kalwant Bhopal presented the keynote annual race equality lecture at the University of Cambridge as part of their Festival of Ideas event. The themes of the lecture was ‘The Realities of Racism’ and Professor Bhopal presented her research on ‘Race, whiteness and privilege in higher education: towards a social justice agenda?’ She explored how whiteness works as a form of privilege in higher education in which processes of racism, exclusion and marginalsation operate to disadvantage black and minority staff and students. The keynote was attended by over 200 participants.