Fresher Provost Michael Arthur channeled his slippery predecessor recently when he skilfully dodged some awkward questions at his in- augural lecture. UCLU Labour Society Secretary Matt Deaves challenged the Provost on UCL’s involvement with shady regimes, specifically Qatar and Kazakhstan.
Arthur responded by acknowl- edging that ‘over time we may help these countries improve their hu- man rights records’, but also recog- nised that the human rights record in these countries is ‘so bad that we would be deeply worried about asso- ciating ourselves with such regimes’.
This comes less than a month after UCL’s Qatar campus, fund- ed by two Qatari state organisa- tions, was opened by Her Excel- lency Sheikha Al-Mayassa bin Hamad Al-Thani, HRH the Duke of York and former Provost Mal- colm Grant. Unsurprisingly, UCL Qatar doesn’t offer courses on democracy, instead focusing on Archaeolog y and Conser vation Studies. The last time Malcolm stayed in Qatar his hotel bills alone cost UCL nearly £1000 (see CG 32), so hopefully he bunked with Prince Andrew this time.
A former UCL student recent- ly condemned UCL’s actions in Qatar on pinknews.co.uk, juxta- posing Qatar’s draconian laws on homosexuality with Vice-Provost Michael Worton’s claim that ‘our values match ver y much with Qa- tar Foundation’ (the state-run or- ganisation funding UCL Qatar).
Despite being asked by The Cheese Grater to clarif y the Prov- ost’s position on these regimes, the Provost’s office gave no re- sponse. Arthur did however add in his speech that he was ‘not a fan of the overseas undergraduate campus approach’. Whether this means he is happy to keep cashing the cheques from authoritarian regimes is another matter. Qatar and Kazakhstan are arg uably more innocent sources of revenue than those found by Provost Arthur during his tenure at Leeds, when he received donations from the former knight of the realm Jimmy Savile, deceased. Once Savile’s crimes were unveiled, the dona- tions were quietly returned to his estate, but it’s unlikely the human rights abuses already witnessed in these regimes will elicit a similar crisis of conscience.