Oxford University's Tainted Honour

"[We, the Oxford Student outlet] are distressed by the news that Oxford University and some of its constituent colleges have accepted donations from The Alexander Mosley Trust."

“The Mosley Family name is synonymous with Fascism and Antisemitism in Britain. The University’s decision to dedicate a professorship to this name serves to commemorate and revere the Mosley legacy."

"Furthermore, the absence of any communication and consultation with Oxford’s Jewish students is inconsiderate and inappropriate."

"[We urge] Oxford University, and the benefiting colleges, to reflect on the impact these donations will have on its Jewish students and the wider student body."

"As an institution that seeks to promote an inclusive environment for all, we hope that Oxford University and the colleges involved will reconsider their positions."

Oxford Student union statement 

"[I am] shocked [the donations were accepted, that] the university has gone off the scale in wokery [in its move to decolonize curriculum and an issue surrounding the commemorative Rhodes statue]."

"Its [Oxford University] moral compass is just not working anymore. There has been a total moral failure."

"Max Mosley has been going round terrorizing people and has never apologized. We shouldn't be dealing with him. This is an open and shut case."

Professor Lawrence Goldman, emeritus fellow in history, former vice-master St.Peter's

"If Oxford is trying to rehabilitate the Mosley family name in any way, they can expect a very hostile response."

"I don't imagine people would be very happy to have a Mussolini building, or a Hitler scholarship."

"People in this country will feel the same way in relation to the Mosley name."

Joh Mann, British Government Anti-Semitism Tsar

The Hall (left) and Maitland Building (right) of Somerville College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Photo: Philip Allfrey/Wikimedia Commons

"In 2019, St Peter’s College received a gift of £5m from the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust, a regulated charity that was set up in memory of a former student of St Peter’s who died tragically young. The money was given to fund a student accommodation building that will be built in the latter half of 2022 and early part of 2023. The building is due to open in Spring 2023."

"Governing Body has discussed the naming of the building with student representatives and with the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust. To ensure that the gift can do the maximum good for the College without complication or distraction, the Trust has foregone naming rights for the new building. Instead it has invited the College to choose a name. This is an imaginative and welcome offer which the College has accepted. The Governing Body of the College looks forward to embarking on a collaborative process with current students in 2022. Since the building does not yet exist, there is time in hand to develop the process and run these College conversations in thoughtful and exploratory ways that will have a lasting legacy. Student representatives have welcomed the naming project."

"The processes of independent University review and scrutiny that the gift underwent before being accepted were thorough; the money is being put to good use in helping to bring more students off the expensive private rental market in Oxford; the former St Peter’s student for whom the charitable trust is named is remembered with warmth in College."

St.Peter's College statement

Funding does have a habit of conveying feelings of warmth in generosity irrespective of the source of the charitable generosity. All the more so when one can ascribe warm feelings to a former alumni with a tragic element thrown in for good measure. Contemptible to many, practical to those who are indifferent to the source and the history surrounding a family whose enthusiastic embrace of fascism and Nazi Germany in particular, taking great pride in personally meeting with Der Fuehrer, history's most despicable war-monger, genocide inspirer.

 

"Moral failure" has been ascribed to Oxford University's considered decision that it could not possibly see any reason not to accept a sizeable donation from the most infamous WWII family in Britain. British aristocrats were infamously in approval with Hitler's fascism, elevating the Nordic ideal in national and cultural and biological superiority. It went hand-in-hand with the live current of anti-Semitism prevalent among the wealthy and the titled classes. Oswald Mosley just took it a little further, dedicating his efforts and resources to the promotion of fascism.

 

Now, the British world-famed academic institution is prepared to give its stamp of approval by default to the Mosley family, irrespective of unsavoury connections and the universality of moral condemnation of a regime responsible for causing tens of millions of deaths of both combatants within the Allied and the Axis fronts, and civilian populations throughout Europe. If a sane mind thinks they could go no lower, then consider 'overlooking' the factoid of Nazi Germany's dedication to the deadly obliteration of six million human beings because they were Jews.

Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, with warm personal relations with Mussolini and Hitler, has a legacy never to be forgotten for its abject approval of inhumanity, yet Oxford University has decided given the allure of millions of pounds, to 'overlook' the man's and his family's dedication to furthering fascism with all that it entails. There was a time not so long ago when principle, morality and justice meant something; Oxford University has decided none of that is all that important any longer in the face of the high cost of doing business.

Now, two of its colleges -- St.Peter's and Lady Margaret Hall -- have chosen to accept cash from the Mosley family trust. Heir Max Mosley set up the trust, signed off on the donations before his death. 6.3 million pounds confers great influence. He had adopted his father's cause in the 1950s and 60s, taking up where his father left off. The donations came out of the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust. Alexander Mosley was Max Mosley's son, a St.Peter's alumnus. He died in 2009 of a drug overdose.

An Alexander Mosley Professor of Biophysics Fund is to be created and paid for out of the 6 million pounds the university receives. While the donation of 5 million pounds geared for St.Peter's is to be made use of for the building of a student residence. According to both of the colleges, the funds were cleared by an independent committee, with "legal, ethical and reputational issues taken into consideration". Astounding.

Professor Goldman explained that for the past five months he had attempted to persuade St.Peter's to back away from the donation from that inexcusably wretched source. He wrote to all fellows on the governing body of the college with the caution that accepting the funds would do honour to a fascist ideology that countenanced a world conflagration and the genocidal Holocaust. That the college would need to have this pointed out to them is confounding; that they would choose to proceed regardless is beyond belief.

 

Oxford University (Steve Parsons/PA) / PA Wire