For centuries, rich, ruthless men have funded centres of learning as a form of spiritual money laundering and to perpetuate the glory of their names. In death, as in life, they drove hard bargains.
Oxford and Cambridge, the UK’s ancient universities, have done well out of such bequests compared with their British and European rivals. But the era of scrutiny-free donations has drawn to an end; the universities face a new and testing environment when it comes to defending decisions to stash the cash and plant a prominent name plate on a new library or graduate centre.
Last week, Oxford, ranked number one in world university league tables, was accused of “moral failure” after it accepted millions of pounds from a charitable trust set up by the Mosley family, a clan tainted by its links to the British fascist party of the 1930s. The rules governing donations are not hard and fast, though the moral calculus of accepting large philanthropic sums is usually overseen by institutional ethics committees. A short-term squall or reputational hit can be factored in, as long as the money was legally earned and brings benefit to educational, charitable (and more comfortable) facilities.
A bequest from the Mosley family is, however, particularly freighted with difficulties. Outside the UK, Max Mosley, who died in May, is best remembered as the businessman who helped steer Formula One motor racing to worldwide success. But at home, he never shook off his association with his father Oswald, the leader of the British Union of Fascists that terrorised Jews in London’s East End in the 1930s. Hitler attended his second marriage to Diana Mitford.
Post-war, Oswald Mosley’s targets were no longer Jews, but non-white immigrants from the former British Empire. At the end of the 1950s, his son Max set up a branch of his father’s Union Movement in London’s Notting Hill and distributed a race-baiting election leaflet in Manchester blaming “coloured immigrants” for the spread of tuberculosis, venereal disease and leprosy.
The perpetuation of the Mosley name by the university seems even more questionable. Prof Lawrence Goldman accused the university of 'vast hypocrisy', saying the donations are part of a broader moral decline in ethics by colleges linked to criticism of 'woke' curriculum changes.
Unlike his half-brother Nicholas, a distinguished novelist who engineered “an antagonistic confrontation” with Oswald and broke off relations with him for years, Max never truly disavowed his father, saying he was “misunderstood”. Later he flirted with a career in the Conservative Party, but eventually became a donor to Labour under Tony Blair (political parties, it turns out, are as elastic as academic outfits in their willingness to accept funds from strange sources).
Some of Oswald’s family money was passed to Oxford and London universities, with more to two of Oxford’s constituent colleges. The money derives from the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust, which Max Mosley set up in the name of his son, who studied at the college and later died of a drug overdose.
Oxford will use its £6m (about R123m) donation to set up the Alexander Mosley Professor of Biophysics Fund; St Peter’s College will build a new residential block to house students. Another beneficiary college is using the funds to support low-income students from diverse backgrounds.
These explanations can sound too pat, even modish. But Max Mosley is dead, so cannot bask in reflected glory.
The perpetuation of the Mosley name by the university, however, seems even more questionable. Prof Lawrence Goldman, an historian and former vice-master of St Peter’s, accused the university of “vast hypocrisy”, saying the donations are part of a broader moral decline in ethics by colleges linked to criticism of “woke” curriculum changes. He makes a trenchant point in highlighting the slippery moral compromises of university authorities: it is always easier to apologise for past errors of judgment than to act well and decisively in the present.
But named university endowments by British and American robber barons haven’t cleaned up their reputations. Under the law of unintended consequences, the statue of the arch-imperialist Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford, and the famous scholarships that bear his name have sustained the memory of his dubious dealings in Africa and acted as a spur to the movement to decolonise the curriculum.
Tainted family dynasties seek to whitewash grubby reputations and underline that new generations can make fresh starts. Opportunistic authoritarian players, however, pose a sterner threat because they often want more than their name bestowed on a building. They want to create chairs or study centres that fit their world views.
A more serious charge against some donors and their greedy recipients is that they may result in warping academic freedom. London’s Sunday Times revealed, for instance, that the London School of Economics had conferred an academic doctorate on the son of former Libyan dictator Col Muammar Gaddafi, despite his PhD being ghost written. In return the Gaddafi Foundation pledged £1.5m (about R31m) over five years to an LSE research centre and gave a college affiliate another £2.2m (about R45m) to train Libyan officials. In a bizarre video link-up with the LSE, the colonel was hailed as “Brother Leader” and given an LSE cap previously conferred on Nelson Mandela. Unsurprisingly, the LSE director was forced to resign.
Other universities have accepted money from authoritarian states, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, to establish Middle Eastern or Islamic study centres. Jesus College, Cambridge, pocketed £200,000 (about R4m) from China’s government and £155,000 (about R3m) from Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications company.
Tainted family dynasties seek to whitewash grubby reputations and underline that new generations can make fresh starts. Opportunistic authoritarian players, however, pose a sterner threat because they often want more than their name bestowed on a building. They want to create chairs or study centres that fit their world views — or blunt the tougher end of debates on human rights.
Beware all donors bearing gifts. It’s not always the plaque with the disgraced family name that brings most dishonour to the dreaming spires of Oxford and beyond.
Martin Ivens was editor of London’s Sunday Times from 2013 to 2020 and formerly its chief political commentator. He is a director of the Times Newspapers board.
— Bloomberg Opinion. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion
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