Saturday, March 05, 2011

Arab royalties at British universities

This scandal about Sayf Al-Islam at LSE should not be confined to one school.  It is a wider--much wider--scandal.  University of Durham specialized at one point in awarding degrees to undeserving wealthy oil Arabs.  Oxford University is no better.  I know the case of one of the younger sons of Shaykh Zayid at UAE.  The son was admitted to the university without even the minimum knowledge of English so the school arranged for special tutors for him.  He was treated not like a student but like, well, royalty.  US universities are not as bad in this regard: but they do admit sons and daughters of rich Arabs in return for large donations (like Georgetown University admitted one of the worst students ever, Sa`d Hariri, in the MBA program), and they accept large donations from rich oil Arabs with strings attached.  Would any of the three centers in the US which received money from Al-Walid bin Talal dare hire a scholar who writes against House of Saud?