The Oxford college, the Mosley money and the moral collapse of our universities

SIR – Allison Pearson’s excellent article (Features, November 3) draws attention to the moral collapse of our leading universities.

The threat to the great Victorian scientist, Thomas Henry Huxley, at Imperial College is one example. That Linacre College, Oxford (report, November 3) is to rename itself after its new donor is another.

Elsewhere in Oxford, my own college, St Peter’s, with the support of the university administration, has taken large sums of money from the Mosley family, the descendants of Oswald Mosley, for a new building.

They dealt directly with the late Max Mosley, whose fascist past, after he graduated from Oxford, was unmasked three years ago. He was engaged in the intimidation of Afro-caribbeans in Notting Hill and Jews in Ridley Road, Dalston, and published inflammatory, racist material as an electoral agent for a fascist parliamentary candidate in 1961. He never apologised and the college never made an apology a condition of the gift.

St Peter’s now proposes to keep the money but obscure the Mosley name, calling the building something else. Attempts by emeritus and honorary fellows to dissuade the college have failed. The vice-chancellor, Louise Richardson, and the university’s director of development will not reply to correspondence.

Our universities have lost their way and need the Charity Commission and Government to intervene decisively, as they did in the mid-victorian period, an era of successful university reform.

Alumni should follow Allison Pearson’s advice and cancel donations. Professor Lawrence Goldman Emeritus Fellow in History

St Peter’s College, Oxford