Cambridge University seeks deal with Saudi defence ministry despite rights concerns

Money talks. Every institution has a price, apparently.

From the article: ‘Cambridge University’s business school is seeking to provide “leadership development” and “innovation management” to Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry, the Guardian has learned. Leadership has approved a proposal by the university’s Judge business school to form a “memorandum of understanding” after an initial introduction by the UK’s Ministry of Defence. Confidential minutes of the meeting show committee members expressed concerns over the Saudi government’s “record on human rights and climate change … and the ability of the university to safely maintain its staff’s academic freedoms”. A senior academic on Cambridge’s university council said: “This is horrifying. The University of Cambridge’s values are to protect ‘freedom of thought and expression’ and ‘freedom from discrimination’. Instead of fighting for our principles, we’re selling them out to the most murderous regime in the world. “The idea that our academics would be safe in a country that arbitrarily imprisons and murders those who dare diverge from state dogma is shameless and disgusting. It’s a total betrayal of what we should stand for”. The university’s press office declined to comment.’

Universities 🤝 Fucked up governments/organisations/businesses.

Introduced by the ministry of defence as well... Unfortunately, many people in this country are still unaware of the horror we helped the Saudis unleash in Yemen with like £30 billion of UK arms. The media never mentions it, only a few parliamentarians ever bring it up, and it generally goes by without issue. We were also recently engaged in defending Saudi Arabia (or more specifically, mainly US bases in Saudi Arabia) in 'collective defence' when Iran was attacking them in response to the US/Israeli assault—again barely questioned. And this is a state owned by a singular family that runs a system of slave labour, allows no meaningful political expression or representation, executes political enemies, and turns journalists into sashimi...

Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist and critic, was murdered on October 2, 2018, by a 15-member Saudi operative team at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

They are looking for someone to provide “leadership development” and “innovation management”, they are going to pay \*someone\* for it, why shouldn’t it be us? When you look at who they \*could\* go to for this, it seems hardly likely Cambridge University are going to steer them down a path that makes their “record on human rights and climate change” worse. We fuel our cars with their oil, essentially funding their government, so is that not the same ethical issue as we see here?

Remember Cambridge Analytica?