Posted by
Ed Lilly on Sunday, May 04, 2008 8:17:52 AM
Perhaps a forward thinking approach to university evaluations by magazines like U.S. News and World Report would include a requirement that the universities provide transparency in disclosing the sources and amounts of all financial gifts, grants, endowments, etc., and universities should also have an office that has complete records, freely available for review online by those who may be interested, that details all correspondence, notes to the file, and program evaluations for the various projects that are funded by these gifts, grants and endowments so that the “buying public” knows exactly what kind of environment their high school graduate may expect when they get to campus.
What prompts such a sweeping suggestion of reform and full disclosure from our higher education system? Here’s the background from The Australian (h/t Instapundit):
THE cheque from the Saudi Government for $360,000 was enclosed in an envelope.
It was a donation, a gift, a part payment to subsidise the construction of a building that would become Sydney's Muslim heartbeat: Lakemba mosque. More than 35 years after Sydney cleric Khalil Shami received the cheque, he insists it came with no strings attached. But while the cheque had no tangible conditions in the form of written instructions or binding contracts, the cleric received a message from his donors several months after depositing it.
"They said: 'Please, can you mention the tragedy of the Palestinian people and what's happened to them in your sermon?"' Shami tells Inquirer. "Which is really a very noble cause, a very noble cause, I couldn't see a negative in their request."
The message Shami received from Riyadh brings into question the influence petro-dollars can have on their recipients, whether the money is bankrolling a religious centre, a clerical allowance or Queensland's Griffith University, which was exposed by The Australian last month for seeking a $1.37million Saudi grant, of which $100,000 was received, and offering to keep elements of the deal a secret.
The Saudi Government - largely through its embassy - is believed to have funnelled at least $120 million into Australia since the 1970s to propagate hardline Islam, bankroll radical clerics and build mosques, schools and charitable organisations.
But the Saudi cash that has flowed into Australia, that also allegedly has paid the allowance of hardline Canberra cleric Mohammed Swaiti, who has publicly praised jihadists, is dwarfed by the $90 billion Riyadh is believed to have pumped into promoting Islamic fundamentalism internationally.
Ninety. Billion. Dollars. So how much have American universities received? What has been funded by it? Who are the professors and staffers who have applied for and received grants from the Saudis? What kind of academic work have those people done with that money? Just a few of the many, many questions that need to be asked and answered.
I’m not sure I follow Daniel Pipes’ argument here:
US-based Middle East expert and author Daniel Pipes says it is wrong to presume that all academics would follow their donor's line merely to keep the stream of funds rolling.
"Academics have a distinct point of view and are not about to be bought and change their point of view for any sum of money," he tells Inquirer. "But they are willing to shape their work and their views. So you can't buy them but you can rent them. So someone who might have been inclined to ask tough questions will do something else. It's subtle. It's not like the Saudis come to town to buy up academics who grovel before them, as was the case with Griffith University."
Last month, Britain's MI5 director-general Jonathan Evans reportedly told his Government that the Saudi Government's multimillion-dollar donations to universities, along with other funds from Muslim organisations in countries such as Pakistan, had led to a "dangerous increase in the spread of extremism in leading university campuses".
You can’t buy them but you can rent them? They won’t change their point of view, but they will stop asking tough questions? Sounds to me like it, contra Mr. Pipes, it is in fact entirely correct to presume that academics who are receiving significant funding from the Saudis are in fact following the Saudis’ line in order to keep the funds rolling. I understand that Pipes has probably forgotten more about terrorism than I may ever know, but if he is somehow trying to argue that we should still trust American academics who are getting funding from the Saudis, I think he’s about as wrong as can be, and he’ll need to expand significantly on these comments to convince me otherwise.