A lack of diversity on University Challenge has long been a controversial issue for the show.
But the programme sparked a sexism row among viewers again last night after both Birmingham University and Balliol College, Oxford, put forward all-male teams.
“Seems like there are more women in Trump’s cabinet than in this series of University Challenge,” one viewer tweeted.
In 2014, quiz master Jeremy Paxman openly criticised the gender imbalance on the programme after it came to light that just 25 women had appeared in the series.
Speaking on the show at the time, Paxman said he would be asking the usual “tough questions”, adding “Few tougher, perhaps, than why on earth are there no women left at this stage of the competition?”
Three years on, students, lecturers and University Challenge fans took to Twitter to once again ponder - and criticise - the lack of female contestants on the quiz show:
A BBC spokesperson told The Huffington Post UK: “The make-up of each team is determined by the universities themselves and whilst we do encourage them to reflect the diversity of their student population ultimately each university has their own team selection process.”
In November, Kings College London introduced a quota for its University Challenge team to tackle the “male-dominated landscape of the show”.
Under the new rules, at least half of the four-person team must be made up of “self-defining women, trans or non-binary students”.
