Oxford University Lambasted For Accepting Donation From Trust Of Nazi Sympathizer Oswald Mosley

NEW YORK (VINnews) — The venerated Oxford University is facing severe criticism after it received a £12 million grant from the fortune of fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley. Jewish student groups have said it was ‘inconsiderate and inappropriate’ for Oxford and two of its constituent colleges, St Peter’s and Lady Margaret Hall, to have taken money from the trust. The groups urged Oxford to return the money donated by the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust, a fund established by Mosley’s son Max, who at times supported his father’s racist policies.

Oxford don, Professor Lawrence Goldman, emeritus fellow in history at St Peter’s, told Sky News on Sunday that universities should not accept ‘tainted and dirty money’. The university claims that it’s ‘Committee to Review Donations’ undertakes a thorough investigation of funding sources but there is little evidence of what criteria motivate the committee and whether it has rejected donations in the past based on those criteria.

Professor Goldman also said that there was a case for dramatic reform and possibly more state control of universities. He added: ‘Oxford has lots of money and can continue to get money from other sources. I don’t really buy the argument that because you can do some good in Oxford, you should just continue to hold on to what is essentially tainted and dirty money.’

Max Mosley was a former student of Christ Church College. His son Alexander was an alumnus of St Peter’s College and died of a heroin overdose in 2009. Thanks to the money, there is an Alexander Mosley Professor of Biophysics Fund but plans to name an accommodation block at St Peter’s after him have been halted.

Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard, an alumnus of Oxford, lashed out at the university,stating that “when I look at my alma mater today, I feel a growing sense of shame.

“The revelation yesterday that the university and two of its colleges have accepted a £12 million bequest, derived from the fortune of the late British fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, should sicken any right-thinking person. But it is especially offensive to all of us in Britain’s Jewish community.

“Mosley was a racist and Hitler-worshipper, rightly interned during the Second World War.Would Oxford be willing to take money from Stalin’s heirs? From the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un? Or perhaps a new library endowed by Pol Pot?

“Oswald Mosley’s racist bigotry is well-known. He spent decades leading one crackpot far-Right sect after another: his pre-war British Union of Fascists became the so-called ‘Union Movement’ throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In their wisdom, the British people were largely repelled by him.”

Pollard described how Mosley and his son marched through London’s Jewish district in 1962 chanting ‘Jews out.’ He then fought Jewish protesters, some of whom were veterans of the Second World War, and one of whom had lost relatives in Auschwitz.

Oxford University insists that it has taken ‘legal, ethical and reputational issues into consideration’ when accepting the donation from the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust.

However Pollard dismisses this claiming that “it cannot have done so with the necessary rigour. For one thing, the Mosley grant will be used to set up the Alexander Mosley Professor of Biophysics Fund.

“I’ll say it again: the Mosleys supported Hitler, who murdered six million Jews – among them members of my own family. Now Jewish students at Oxford will be forced to see the Mosley name every day, woven into the fabric of the university. What are the ‘ethics’ of that?”