Oxford has ended its women-only fellowship after the university’s administrators said it breached equality law.

The Joanna Randall-MacIver junior research fellowship, established in the 1930s for women studying fine arts, music or literature, was deemed to be “discriminatory on the grounds of gender” by Oxford’s Council.

This is the first time that the university has opened up a historically female-only fellowship to male applicants, and the move has prompted a backlash from previous recipients.

The decision means that other research fellowships could be under threat, including those run by Cambridge's female-only college Newnham. The College say that its women-only appointments comply with the Equality Act.

Professor Elizabeth Cullingford, a Randall-MacIver fellow in the 1970s who is now chair of English at Texas University, said: “I feel pretty strongly that having one or two things that are special to woman aren’t going to threaten any great power structure at Oxford.

“The history there is totally male – for years women couldn’t even be in the university and couldn’t be fellow of a college.”

She said that women do still have some “catching up” to do with men, adding: “We may have parity in numbers but do we have parity on power? I doubt that. I am the first female chair of the English department and Texas University has been around since the 19th century.”