A Question of Ethics

Bruce Macfarlane
During the current turbulence in the Middle East, a storm of public criticism engulfed the London School of Economics after it was found to have accepted a £1.5 million (US$2.4 million) pledge from a charity run by a son of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. LSE Director Howard Davies accepted responsibility and resigned.
Cambridge University's Deputy Vice-chancellor also came in for criticism for being part of a delegation to the Middle East that included representatives of British arms manufacturers. Other universities in France and the United States have been found to have trained Libyan diplomats.
But the LSE affair is only the latest in a long line of ethical controversies that have affected universities. Back in 2000, in what some saw as the ultimate irony in university corporate sponsorship, Nottingham University accepted £3.8 million from British American Tobacco to establish an International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility.
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Source: University World News, Issue No: 0162, 13 March 2011