Universities warned to look at ethical risks from donations
UNIVERSITIES should “consider the ethical and reputational risks” of accepting funding from controversial donors, a minister said last night, after it was revealed Oxford University took money from the family trust of Sir Oswald Mosley.
Michelle Donelan, who is the first minister to comment on the controversy, said institutions should consider the risks and “the views of any relevant student and staff communities” but should accept donations from “legiti- mate charitable organisations”.
The minister made the comments after Professor Lawrence Goldman, an emeritus fellow in history at St Peter’s College, Oxford, called yesterday for more regulation of university funding to avoid institutions paying for their projects with “tainted and dirty money”.
A Whitehall source said government regulation of university fundraising was “not on the cards” and that while “there is a responsibility on universities to get this right… it is a decision for them to make”. Prof Goldsmith said it was inappropriate for institutions to take money from a Mosley family trust, when the original fortune was donated by Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists.
St Peter’s College and Lady Margaret Hall, the two Oxford colleges that accepted a total of more than £6.3million from the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust, insisted the donations went through a “robust” review process.
But while ministers were shocked by the university’s decision to accept money from the Mosley family, they do not believe it is the Government’s duty to intervene. Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, said: “When accepting donations, universities
should consider ethical and reputational risks, and the views of any relevant student and staff communities.
“This should not be a barrier to working with legitimate charitable organisations that [can] provide funds to support academic research and a high-quality student experience.”
But a Whitehall source added that a new regulator to assess donations was “not on the cards”.
Prof Goldman said Oxford and its colleges had shown they cannot be trusted to vet their own donations. “If they can’t govern themselves effectively, and according to the moral principles that most British people would expect of great universities, then there may be a role for the state,” he told Sky News.
He added: “[I] don’t buy the argument that because you can do some good in Oxford, you should continue to hold on [to] tainted and dirty money.”
Oxford University, St Peter’s College and Lady Margaret Hall all previously said that the funds they received from the Mosley trust were cleared by an independent committee, which reviewed donations in a “robust” manner.