The funding allows easy access for their citizens to receive and education, and credentials that go along with that education, to bring back to the sponsors, and become part of the governments structure. Regardless of the nature of the governments politics, and humane operation. The universities and colleges that take the money are doing what they always have done; run them like a business is operated in the US. They are as wrong as the remainder of Americans who live by these principles. Even Machiavelli, if he were alive today, would openly tell you that this distortion of his instruction, falls into the bottom levels of immorality, and unethical behavior, preserved for a lower level of Dante's vision. But it is not new. Not in Cambridge. How much money did Harvard accept in the 30's from certain donors, such as the Presbyterian church, on behalf of maintaining German beliefs persecuting those of Jewish heritage and faith on their campus?
19
The sweetheart deal between the Saudis and U.S. higher education institutions was struck decades ago. Almost all of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, and almost all of them entered the U.S. legally on student visas. And, if wasn't until years after 9/11 the the U.S. began tracking student visa holders from terrorist supporting countries. Remember, the hijackers had overstayed their student visas. Then, in the hours after the towers fell, about the only planes allowed to fly in U.S. airspace were those whisking Saudi nationals, many of them college students, out of the U.S. This isn't to denigrate the many wonderful Saudi students in our schools, it's just that we are naive if we think that our cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia vis a vis education is anything new.
77
@JAS "Oh, it's nothing new!" is such a milquetoast response.
Actually, there's plenty new. More and more underqualified foreign students from China, India and Saudi Arabia are gaining admission to the nation's top schools simply because of the higher tuition they pay.
This leaves out deserving domestic (and other international students not from those countries). Higher education is supposed to be about merit. This limp "let's not denigrate excellent students" serves no purpose but to normalize this behavior. They're not excellent students. Their entrance grades are poor. They have a significant higher incidence of academic cheating.
If if you want to make it about money, then put everyone on the same footing and sell the seats to the highest bidder. Stop pretending that it's about merit when it's clearly not.
At this rate, US higher education system will become like Canada's. The population of foreign students doubled over the last ten years, while class sizes only increased by a fraction of that.
17
I work with many Saudi graduate students -- I am a fellow graduate student and a writing coach. It sometimes feels to me as if the US is educating a generation of future leaders for Saudi Arabia, and this gives me great hope!
The students with whom I have worked are thoughtful, conscientious and hardworking. Some study engineering, some study education, or history, or other subjects. They are free to pursue their own academic interests within the field of their choice.
Sometimes the work is incredibly challenging for them (imagine taking a course on the history of American schooling when you have never studied American history!), but they are excited to learn and to take what they have learned back to Saudi Arabia. In particular, many are excited to engage with Peace Studies, and to learn about different ways of imagining what a body politic can be. As they go back to their home universities, I hope that just as their government is able to influence our institutions, that their institutions and people will in turn be influenced by this American-educated generation of thinkers, scholars and educators.
18
@Joshua Keidan
I have been hearing this "generation of future leaders" excuse since the 1950s. When has it worked?
22
Perhaps leadership at so many American Universities should take a refresher ethics class. Academia likes to think of itself as a place of higher thinking....sounds like the lowest of the low. Money is clearly their moral compass. Blood on their hands.
10
The love of money is the root of all evil.
11
I believe that at one time in the 1970's or 80's, the President of Cornell, Rhodes, I think, turned down a large pot of federal money because it was awarded as a pork barrel grant, and not through competitive peer review.
How far we have come.
7
Richard Lester is quoted in your article as saying “I don’t get it. Why would M.I.T. want to sully its national and international reputation for chump change?”
Well, the only reason I can think of is MONEY. It’s not a stretch to imagine that some MIT faculty have very lucrative consulting contracts with Saudi companies that are double, triple or more their annual MIT salaries. Or that some MIT faculty working on private start-ups may be receiving VC money from Saudi sources. None of these transactions would appear on MIT’s books.
16
Ok, now this is real investigative journalism that has real meaning for our national security. Can we stop mincing words and ask ourselves, what can be done to stop this corrupting influence in our nation?
The corrupting influence of foreign money in our most cherished institutes by people who are proven blood thirsty, ruthless, power hungry dictators and tyrants is simply not right, not ok, and needs to be exposed, halted, followed-up on regularly.
We've got 5 members of the Federalist Society on the Supreme Court; that will almost always vote for big money every time and it wouldn't matter where it came from in their view as far as anything about each of the character or judicial programing seems to reveal to me. These people get to these positions through the influence of money and some are there because of "Citizens United" and they voted to do that in attack the Voting Rights Bill.
We have an utterly corruption government as far as the GOP and its leader are concerned. I've never seen such utter infidelity to nation and principle in this nation and there have been some horrible people since FDR and Eleanor left the White House, a couple of coupe's but this is absolutely sickening. If there is one remaining 100% true patriot of our nation in high places, it is time to take a higher action in my view, regardless of how bloody the fight. Our nation is under fire in my opinion. I don't know if Pelosi has the will to sacrifice for freedom.
12
Money is influence and money accepted without knowing its legitimacy, is corruption.
Ive lived in ME and understand the culture well. The Saudi men (I’ve never worked with a Saudi female in any of 3 US universities I went to) I worked with and taught (close to dozen)— with the exception of one person— were arrogant, behind in their training, and sexist.
I found them lacking in manners which I’ve seen commonly practiced in UAE and Saudi homes!
Also, I felt since their tuitions were being paid, majority had no real incentive to perform better or strive to work harder... nah, below par wasn’t perfectly alright with them.
One must ask, the visual optics of going to all the elite universities, spending few million here or there (it’s like throwing jellybeans, to these folks), why haven’t they asked these respective universities to help launch similar education campuses in SA? Sorta like what UAE has done with Cleveland’s clinic and Harvard...
Saudi’s Arabians monarchy is absolute and they’ve no real desire to educate or alleviate their masses to the point where they begin questioning their validity, their i.e House of Saud’s (in truth) anti-Islam presence in the pantheon of Islam.
The kings and the currents Prince have done a convincing job of keeping their masses docile, subdued and subpar— forever mediocre.
11
Correction:
"... nah, below par was perfectly alright with them."
5
"his institution had created a curriculum based on American constitutional law that would make Saudi students less likely to be involved in any activities like rounding up, torturing or executing dissidents"
Really? That's a laughable concept. I doubt any of those students will try to go against their established legal standards no matter how offensive Americans may find them. After all, it's their law and their country.
10
Having turned education into a for-profit industry, there shouldn’t be any surprises that foreign countries are influencing and exploiting institutions of higher learning. From the Saudis to the Chinese and others, free ideas are under assault. By “donating” to colleges and universities, wealthy “benefactors” can mute conversations such as the controversial criticism of the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions movement launched by the Palestinians against Israeli occupation.
4
Even a grade schooler would recognize that there is something wrong with this picture.
The phrase “role modeling” enters parents lexicon when their kids are toddlers. Then it becomes a credo.
But what happens when their children apply to college?
Based on this article, there is a grave need for those in the upper echelon of higher education to be transferred to a four year program on ethics.
With no guarantee of admission.
7
What really should worry us is how our universities become like Mao’s China─ during their failed Cultural Revolution. America universities are the least American place in any American city or state. If you don’t subscribe to “party line” thinking, you will surely be persecuted. The writer of this piece ignores the real crisis plaguing America’s universities. That is the lack of freedom of speech and freedom of thought in our campuses. Once the world’s envy─ our universities have been turned into bastions of Identity Politics, Post Modern Neo-Marxist “re-education camps” tax-payer funded Democratic Party’s left-wing politics. Our universities are systematically been destroyed by left-wing visionary theorizing that supplanted American’s proud classical and liberal arts education. Thus, our universities have become a heaven for restrictive, oppressive, close minded ideologues and activists─ who will not tolerate, free thought, or diversity of opinion. And they are shockingly opposed to free and fair exchange of ideas. Thus our taxpayer funded ─entire system of higher education, including our dysfunctional, union controlled, 90 percent women ran ─ nightmarish, public educational system too have become an inextricable part of part of the Democratic Party’s political plantation.
5
As it coincides with rise of virulent anti-Semitism on college campuses, and the aggressive and unchecked indoctrination of the most malleable minds into a well-scrubbed, facile version of Islam that goes against the very writings of the Q'uran, there can be no doubt that this is jihad at its most artful. It's success can be measured in the way that this article categorically ignored the inescapable fact of that fast-moving cancer on US campuses that is blind and baseless hatred of Jews and the Jewish nation.
6
Shame on MIT, Cook, Bezos and the rest of them so cozy with the Saudis.
9
Next Article please: Why is there so many Israeli "educational" exchange programs in American Universities! Huhhh
6
Good article. We should remember that in the 80s, other petro-states such as Venezuela and Nigeria, established strong programs to send students to US schools with full tuition paid. American universities offer two benefits for foreign states: education of their future leaders and access to world-class research. Maintaining access to our great universities is a major plus for US foreign policy, as the great Senator W. Fullbright foresaw 50 years ago. On the other hand, we should try not block access to university education to OUR young people - of all socio-economic backgrounds - and to OUR US firms that would benefit from university research (often funded by the government). If this happened, no hand-wringing would be necessary.
1
SA is called a monarchy. A more descriptive term would be hereditary dictatorship — like North Korea. MBS is every bit as unsavoury as Kim. At least medieval misogyny is not among Kim’s many sins. SA should be shunned as the rogue nation it is.
10
Seems there is a fair number of male Saudi students in my area who do not conform to the strict Muslim standards of morality in regard to homosexual acts. They are full-fare-paying students whose parents have sent them away, most likely for their own safety. We aren’t far from nonstops back home but far enough away from prying eyes of their agents. Out of sight, out of mind for a few years until “they grow out of it” or figure out a way to hide it after they finish their degrees. I don’t begrudge them their time up in the U.S. and wish them well navigating their plutocratic theocracy after graduation.
2
The article, by the way, reveals one very interesting fact: Saudi Arabia does not consider America Islamophobic.
2
The real question, instead of that asked in the headline, is why NYT and other media giants are not fully supportive of having students from a variety of nations attend US colleges/universities and taking the cultural lessons they’ve learned back home? J William Fulbright would turn over in his grave if he could see this article. We should not complain about foreign students here...we should be avidly soliciting them.
This is the best line in the report: When I told Lester that others seemed to speak only elliptically about Saudi Arabia, if at all, he said, dryly, “M.I.T. has its own culture, and the culture is one that I think appreciates facts.”
3
And what attitudes, either changed or more determined, do these Saudi supported students bring back home with them.
If they are open to new approaches, even to become supporters then Bravo. If they return cheering on beheadings and limited opportunities for others, what are we gaining by having them here except to limiting our own students opportunity.
5
Taking money from anyone else in SA could only be justified if a complete review of their income were done to determine if that individual was being used as a pass through carrier.
Since I'm sure that would not be possible in any form, then the only choice for universities is not to accept any funds from SA unless they want to be seen as self-serving opportunists.
Universities, pretending to be innocent bystanders, while rolling in tuition and grant money from the Chinese are already pretty much complicit in the transfer of research to a country that wants to go marauding around the world while we have our heads turned to the soap opera in the White House.
4
American universities are like politicians - willing to accept money from just about anyone if it improves their chances of "winning." The American public, however, needs to decide if it wants taxpayer money going to organizations who take "donations" from our economic and political foes (e.g. China). Or from some of the worst human rights abusers (e.g. S Arabia).
8
This story should include the scandal of US enabling Saudi students convicted of serious crimes to return home with Saudi embassy help and escape punishment.
9
I have taught Saudi graduate students: Their tuition was helping shore up a 3rd rate graduate program that just wanted their money. The students were sorely unprepared to be studying in the US - their English was horrid, so I looked into their English test scores: abysmal. I finally figured out why none of them could understand me. I was lecturing to a bunch of blank faces who had no idea what I was saying. Some of the male students were the most obnoxious students I ever had - not only ill prepared, lacking English skills, but extremely sexist (I am female) - they were insulting to me and to their female classmates (not all were this way, but the vocal ones were). They defied instructions, snickered, were just generally miserable men. I didn’t realize what was going on till I investigated: The school was taking their money, didn’t care about their preparation, would award them degrees that they paid for but didn’t earn. It was horrid. I left teaching there. I had some really nice Saudi students, both male and female, elsewhere. But some programs are simply letting Saudis pay for American degrees. It’s sickening.
106
Remember George Bush’s economic and banking collapse of the 2008? Most universities endured vast cuts in funding. They were forced to cope by sending out armies of recruits to oil rich Gulf States in the Middle East. That included Saudi Arabia. And also to Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and others to save themselves from extinction.
3
Don’t look for US Universities, elite or not, to teach ethics in courses or by example. You either already have it when you get there or you never will. Just look at alumni on the SCOTUS, look in industry, finance, academia, religion, or government. Only a few of our leaders exhibit ethical behavior, but most are content with situational ethics, which allows them to feel virtuous.
9
MIT took money from a foreigner that had a reporter killed, Harvard has buildings and programs named after a political family that has killed and raped women.
10
As a professor who specializes in the Middle East and who supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli educational institutions that are complicit in the unending and illegal Occupation, I find it the height of hypocrisy that there is not at least as strong a movement to boycott Saudi and other Gulf blood money as there is to boycott cooperation and collaboration with Israel. Indeed, the same could and should be said for Chinese money given the government's horrific treatment of millions of Uyghurs, and so on.
Simply put, the US Academy needs a clear code of ethics to govern the acceptance of funding by universities, think tanks and so on by any government and/or private entities, domestic or foreign, profit-driven or philanthropic, which would draw a clear line at accepting funding or establishing collaborations with any governments or institutions that are responsible for or complicit in systematic and large-scale violations of fundamental human, political and/or civil rights, international crimes, or large scale environmental degradation. Given how close the world is to the precipice of unprecedented human-made disaster, I find it shocking at how amoral and self-serving my colleagues remain when we should be taking the lead, particularly those in my own field who should certainly know better.
Mark LeVine
Professor of History
UC Irvine
36
Professor LeVine,
The Arab countries surrounding that “neighborhood bully” Israel could take a tiny portion of their wealth and end the Palestinian’s economic suffering in one fell swoop. Instead they have spent all these decades feeding the fantasy of the Palestinians that they would eventually kill off all the Jews and take all the land for themselves. I do applaud you pointing out the hypocrisy of supporting BDS while giving the Arab countries a free pass. I suggest you too shift your energy from harming your fellow Jewish academics to putting pressure on Arab nations to end the death and destruction they reign over on a daily basis. Cutting academic ties with SA is a start.
8
What I don't understand how the Times has no problem covering the horrific history of the Nazi era (more specific murdering 6 million Jews) but reports very little about the systematic killings via bombing and starvation of millions of Yemen people. Just because many are of a different religion. I challenge the Times and other news agencies to bring these atrocities to light more often. It is difficult for me to comprehend how these top universities are so greedy to accept money from countries that murder just because of sect differences. Murder women, stoning them and killing them just because perhaps they want more freedom. Murder reporters and anyone who speaks out against this royalty, murder just because they are different? Reminds me of the NAZI era. The NY Times needs to be a lot more bold in its reporting. Are we becoming a nation where anyone can be bought, including Universities, just because of money? Then are we any better then they are? Are we not complicit with them?
24
We’d be better able to criticize Saudi beheadings if we didn’t have the death penalty in 29 states.
13
It's wahhabism. Look at Kosovo and India where the Saudis have spent billions to set up madrassas to teach children to hate the U.S. This insidious form of Islam has created ISIS and other forms of terrorism.
17
I’m often dismayed about the hate outside and especially inside the USA...even George Washington and MLK are being disparaged here.
3
Interesting and sad that in this discussion, there is not one mention of the academic boycotts and severance of collaboration with Israel. Granted Israel’s government is bad, not worse than our own, but they at least have an open and democratic society. They don’t have billions of dollars to quiet their critics, just freedom. Double standard or antisemitism?
8
Definitely double standards. As a Muslim, I am as apposed to Israeli occupation and oppression of/Palestinians as I am to Saudi oppression of women, minorities and the murderous occupation of Yemen.
4
Carnegie had unionists beaten and shot.
Ford was an avid anti-semite.
Rockefeller was a monopolist...
Through the years, philanthropy has had many strange bedfellows, image polishers, and white washers.
6
Saudi Blood money.
Give it back.
16
The Saudis gave something like $400M to Harvard to write the Jews out of the history of Israel. Really.
12
As everyone knows, VERITAS translates from pig Latin to MONEY!!!!
4
The Chinese Communist Party dwarfs the Saudis in this regard but not a word from the Lefties on them...
13
In what regard?
You seem to assume a NYT news article is a missive from “the Lefties”. That’s pretty daft, but only half as daft as the suggestion that China is immune to criticism by “the Lefties” because it calls itself communist.
In any case, hardly a day goes by without an article on Chinese trade policy and ambitions. Not exactly “no word” unless you’re reading very selectively.
3
So are my fellow Americans very forgetful or just stupid? The Saudi's were responsible for 911. Nobody else. Keep selling them weapons people. They'd never think of using them again us.
18
Strange that the hypocrisy of the liberal universities is being exposed in the NYT...which institutions will be next?
7
This article doesn’t mention how the Saudis protect these students from American law. The Oregonian has published a series of articles about how the Saudis fly students out of US in private planes to protect them from charges like rape and vehicular homicide. The Saudis are not our friends.
26
Yes, as an Oregonian I am familiar with how the Saudi’s protect their college students.
The Oregonian found crimes in Portland where Saudi students were spirited out of the country and avoided justice. The crime that was most horrible was a drunk driving death where a young girl on a bicycle was killed crossing the street. The Saudi student left on a chartered jet. Well that was bad. But then the Oregonian went out to other universities around the country and found a similar record. The Saudi quietly protect their students and if you add the incidences up nationally its a lot of crimes that they have gotten away with.
I was surprised it was not mentioned in this article — because it is one of the costs of associating with Saudi students.
18
American education is doomed by internal and external devastating interference. The problem mainly increased since Reagan era who not only deregulated US higher education sector turning it into just another typical for-profit industry, but also started polluting American education sector with infusion of religion.
Moreover, it's not just Saudi or few such autocratic countries like China who seem to have spread significant influence over American academia. At least some highly corrupt private business groups from India are also penetrating into highly lucrative US higher education industry- https://is.gd/BqloiF
I came across a nice (but little lengthy) commentary in Quora titled, "Why should USA and other western countries minimize students from countries like India and China, where education, mainly basic education, is ruined, to allow only talented ones to join higher education and research sector in these western countries?" - https://is.gd/vZH9g6 Many of the issues raised there are equally valid for other countries where US gets many of its lucrative rich customers (read, students) for universities and also cheaper and easily exploitative employees for many American companies that include universities.
Now American education system is like American health care- Most expensive but not that great or globally competitive. Our ability to generate wealth using our education is also greatly reduced and declining.
11
Why is there so much
Saudi money in
American universities?
Could be prestige
If you can return
To your country
With a degree from M.I.T.
You’re assumed to have
Some expertise
If you are besieged
By critics of your nation
It may be a way
To appease, if you please
That could be an
Explanation
2
Why is their so much Chinese money in US universities? What are their leaders getting out of it, in terms of technology transfer and military espionage, well documented elsewhere than the Times. Far more money than Saudis, where is that article?
11
I have thought for a little while that Trump is supporting these dictators so when the time comes (2020) he can have a coup with the support of these dictators with military might. Good by America and good by democracies across the world.
There is a coup of the harshes of dictators and greedy rich billionaires.
4
"After the morning at M.I.T., he made the short trip in his motorcade to Harvard, where he participated in what was called a faculty round table, followed by a reception with local college presidents.
"No one asked him about Yemen or about much of anything else."
America is for sale. All of it. Somehow we imagine that universities and non-profits are exempt from the temptation to sell their souls to the highest bidder. When questioned about this or that particular contribution, administrators for rich academic programs like to point out how little that specific donation contributes to the overall institutional budget -- suggesting that their precious souls are priced so high as to be beyond the reach of mere corruption. But it is the system as a whole that corrupts, the ingrained habitual practice of offering for a price the cover of respectability to thieves, murderers and anyone else with the means to pay.
One of the minor virtues of Trump is that he is too shamelessly dense to lie in a clever way. He lies incessantly, but to little effect. His lies are transparent. So he lies about believing MBS regarding Khashoggi's murder, but in the next breath explains why: the US makes so much money off the Saudis that the personal peccadillos of its leaders simply don't matter.
Corporate, academic and non-profit leaders are more circumspect about their lying. They fly beneath the radar until, as here, an enterprising journalist peeks beneath the mask of elitist respectability.
21
Thank you for the great reporting. I've wondered for years:
How are so many foreign students affording to come here? Simultaneously, why can so few American students AFFORD to go to University?Who are these universities here to serve?
Clearly this is just one more example of the wealth of globalization flowing away from the Americans to foreign lands and governments.
No wonder Trump won.
He identified the rage many Americans feel --not because they are racist or even selfish--but because they have been pawns in globalization-- as educational opportunities and wealth of large numbers of Saudis, the Chinese and Indians have eclipsed those of Americans.
9
Qatar also pays for American tuition for it's citizens.
5
Government, the financial and banking industries , the health care industry, the church...all these have shown themselves, to be blunt, corrupted. Why should higher education be different?
7
For more thought-provoking perspective on these “we’ll take it if we can get it” attitudes in our presumably well-intentioned higher education system, which should deeply trouble us for their growing acceptance and pervasiveness, highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast (Season 1, EP6) “My Little Hundred Million” http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/06-my-little-hundred-million
1
There was a time, where few Saudi were educated in the US (mostly at Princeton) through the late Saudi (actually he was Lebanese) ambasador Jameel Baroodi. MBS was certainly not among them.
Times have changed.
3
The author could have done a service by subtotition the words “ men “ or male for “students”. It would drive home what a sexist abuse of university admissions policy this is. After all, would MIT or Washington State allow a schollarship fun tomsponsor only men¿
4
The Saudis are our enemies. In spite of George W's love affair with Prince Bandar and Trump and family's love affair with the crown prince, it was not an accident that 15/19 of the hijackers of 9/11 were Saudis. Before that and even today, Saudi Arabia leads the world attacks on the economy by controlling the price of oil. If the world were not dependent on oil nobody would deal with the filthy gang of hoodlums that they are, holding the world hostage to their whims. Universities should have the guts to not take their filthy money. It is no better than taking money from the Mafia. Many universities sit on such huge trust funds, they should have the decency not to take tainted money and return what they have taken in the past.
15
We have been at war w/this leading state supporter of Jihad since, at least. 9/11. But the anti-ideological, Pragmatist meatheads who influence and guide foreign policy evade Saudi cultural war for their trivial, deceptive military support. We must declare war, invade and publicly, without trial, kill their political and religious leaders. End of Jihad. End of worthless, altruist US fight against derivative enemies.
Don’t take the bloody money.
Don’t let a murderous dictator be lauded at your school.
Don’t look the other way.
Women have no rights. LGBTQ people have no rights.
Journalists are chopped up. Citizens beheaded.
The people of Yemen have been slaughtered.
Don’t take the bloody money.
It’s actually quite simple.
6
Very disappointed in MIT. They don’t need Saudi money. Better not to associate a proud institution with crooks, thieves, and murderers.
9
Saudi Arabia is trying to influence Americans into ignoring the fact that it is autocratic fossil fuel royal theocracy that gave rise to al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, 15 of the 9/11 hijackers, ISIS, Mohammed bin Salman and ethnic sectarian cleansing genocide against the Houthi in Yemen and the Kurds everywhere.
Saudi Arabia is counting on fossil fuels allure for the American military-industrial complex. While Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and Islam only 20% of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims are Arabs.
The nations with the most Muslims- Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh- have had democratically electedfemale heads of state/government. And two of them have nuclear weapons.
Saudi Arabia is trying to emulate American ally Israel. Despite Israeli nuclear weapons and depredations against the Palestinians America looks the other way. With 80% of the world's 16 million Jews evenly split between America and Israel the 1.8% of Americans who are Jewish have enormous influence.
While the number of American Muslims is growing most are African American instead of Arabs. Besides American antipathy towards Muslims particularly black Africans and Arabs is deeply rooted. Trump's Muslim ban was an expression of that bigotry and hate.
3
Nothing wrong with exchange students studying here. But, Saudis have also paid for Muslim day schools in America that teach hateful things about Jews, and likely Christians, too. When they endow a liberal arts or history chair, you know those courses are going to be heavily slanted against Jews, Israel, and factual history. Wouldn't be surprised if some of the textbooks used in some school districts, openly distorting the history of Jews, Israel, etc., trace back to Saudi money.
Don't care if right now the Saudis, sort of, need Israel. Their population is grotesquely anti-Semitic. Heard it from several non-Jews who have worked/lived in Saudi Arabia. The citizens of that "kingdom" are brainwashed to hate. And, such twisted hatred and feelings of endowed superiority translate into treating women, even children, as second class.
9
Saudi money is also going to introduce Muslims in China to their version of Islam, or Wahhabism, the same extreme "faith" that propels groups like al Qaeda. The NYT keeps bashing China over reports of indoctrination of the Uyghurs, but the reverse is going on. They're trying to stop Wahhabism from corruption Muslim culture. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe the Jamestown Foundation https://jamestown.org/program/returning-uighur-fighters-and-chinas-national-security-dilemma/. Or this expert in Foreign Policy magazine: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/24/farah-pandith-saudi-how-we-win-book/?fbclid=IwAR15TgNS3qO0uts7vJvIVQLt7Y-d_ycrcUfnPsLth938rCZuOcW9hGTU7Rg It would not be the first time the US and its CIA have partnered with extremists (e.g., Syria. Ukraine) to further other ends.
2
“-and to at least 62 other American universities...”. No link to the list? Why publish an online version of the NYT if not to link to this type of data?
7
Psssst.
Look down:
The Saudis are funding the construction of hundreds and hundreds of mosques throughout The Middle East, Asia and Africa.
These mosques are “educating” thousands and thousands
of Muslims in Wahhabism, you know, the radical preaching that all infidels must be converted or slaughtered, and the complete suppression of women.
These mosques are producing thousands of Radical Wahhabism graduates every year. This is dangerous
15
So if you wear a suit, it’s not prostitution! (According to Trump, we are ignoring 9/11, Yemen, and Khashoggi for “mere peanuts”).
Sounds like the entire world knows we Americans will sell anything for cash money......like our elections.
2
So if Mit won’t boycott the killers then let the rest of us boycott Mit. And the rest of them. And please just shut off the air conditioners, if you are really interested in ‘change’.
2
Let's talk about Chinese money.
5
It's who you know. College is a place where you meet people... and it's not necessarily about "mixing." You come with some sort of pedigree and wealth and unless you are beautiful and clever, you probably don't advance far beyond the status with which you entered but a few get lucky, very lucky.
However, it's also a credential - and one does learn all sort of things beyond the classroom.
3
The article states “No other nation pays for its American-based college students in the same systematic way.” This needs to be fact-checked. Though smaller in nature, the Kuwait and the UAE governments also offer scholarship programs that have paid for thousands of their students to study in the US; as is mentioned in the article, each student in these programs is also approved for a specific major. Brazil also ran a large program for a few years known as the Brazil Scientific Mobility Program in which the Brazilian government paid US universities directly for their students to study in the US, mostly in the STEM fields.
6
I have taught many Saudi students over the past 20 years, and I have often wondered about the Saudi government's willingness to support students attending American universities. So I appreciate this interesting and informative article.
57
The US government's military has killed thousands of Middle Eastern residents in a series of wars and military actions since the 1990s. It treats immigrants crossing our borders from Mexico harshly, with stories of abuses in the news almost daily.
As a consequence, shouldn't the governments of France and Germany bar US students from studying in their universities? Shouldn't their universities refuse money from US corporations? Isn't that just, after all?
72
@Greg. Actually it was RUSSIA in the 90s
14
@Mary S
Persian Gulf War I under George H. W. Bush. My, some people have short memories. Russia was fighting in Afghanistan in the 80s and the US was finding the mujahaddeen that became the Taliban.
11
You mean funding?
1
Interesting article that raises difficult questions. I offer just one observation- having worked in Saudi with students who have returned from studying in the USA, my impression is that the vast majority of them, including the female students, return with a better understanding of the benefits of a 'western' lifestyle and they are a modernizing influence within the kingdom. So, whatever other action is taken, cutting student study would not be sensible.
91
@Philip
Wouldn't their "better understanding of a 'western' lifestyle" being good depend on the actual view(s) developed? An understanding that freedom of speech is important is one thing, but an understanding, thanks to our warped Supreme Court, that money is the very same thing as "free speech" is another thing (unless one believes in such rot, and if you do, then why would bribery be illegal? Oh, wait...it only is in the non-political world; in politics, it simply is par for the course).
A better understanding that money is larger than god? Well, in a theocracy, one would need to spin that revelation quite carefully, but the idea of oligarchy, of how the USA qua 'democracy' is largely a delusion perpetrated upon the majority by a rich and powerful cabal, well, one only needs to read the news to see that. Apparently it is only Americans who are subject to the actual delusion. Must be something in the water...
Now, if one were to develop a better understanding of how justice can prevail, how rule of law can overrule irrational, if not corrupt (perverted, greedy-based, vicious, etc.) thought, well, indeed, one needs to be in the USA to discern such thinking as the instances of justice triumphing over fools and criminals is somewhat rare.
At least the media doesn't spend much time promoting those occasions. And it sometimes seems that Americans are more interested in acts of self-aggrandizement, profiteering, and debauchery, aka The American Dream.
That won't sell in SA.
12
@Philip
The Saudi kids I’ve met who studied here are fun to talk with. They’ll tell you about political intrigue at home and, maybe not intentionally, their understanding of the “western” lifestyle. Their understanding of it at home, as they’ll readily tell you, is that it’s best practiced behind closed doors. You want to drink? Close the door. Do you want to treat women as (almost) equal? Close the door. Do you want to engage in debauchery either straight or gay? Close the door. And if you can’t be bothered to close the door, get in the car and drive the five or six hours to Bahrain. We’re not exporting the ideas of personal freedoms and representative government? We’re exporting exactly what we are and those kids understand it well. If you have a choice between personal freedoms and belonging to the oligarchy, choose the oligarchy. Dumb these kids are not.
11
@Philip ain't happening. Even the Syrian dictator was Western Trained.
6
Guess the great truth is - when there is money involved, all principles are put aside.
Great article highlighting the faux liberalism and concern displayed but these “non-profit” institutions.
161
Although Saudi influence is corrupting, their impact isn't much different than Exxon, Shell, and BP. That these companies (and country) fund energy research is nauseating. We desperately need real breakthroughs in battery technology, which has improved at a snail's pace while other tech improves exponentially. Battery breakthroughs keep Exxon, Aramco, and other energy CEO's up at night. Because nothing could undermine their business models faster. Where could such discoveries be made? MIT, etc. What better way to suppress them, than by funding the energy engineering research.
196
"Battery breakthroughs keep Exxon, Aramco, and other energy CEO's up at night."
Not really: the obsolete "intellectual property" system forces inventors to get patents to make any money from them, and allows the oil megacorps to buy those patents and suppress those energy sources' very presence. The megacorps already do.
End The Patent and make inventions the property of ALL people, and they can't do that. Plus, inventors then don't have to worry that their employer will just outlawyer them, buy their work, and keep the money, which frees them from having to BE with bad bosses in the first place—just as Medicare for All would too.
That, of course, is why the "free" (rigged) "market" (cartel) of "capitalist" (corporate-welfare) employers throws all the money they can—Saudi included—to stop both.
14
@Brian, good news. There is battery technology advancing in academia and in the private sector. And it powers mass-produced cars. There is one company that has tackled the battery challenge and, so far, has left competitors struggling to catch up: Tesla Motors. If you set aside the SEC and car pricing snafus, you see a successful trio of production cars. And battery technology that has expanded range, and shortened charge times, and has made road trips practical. Tesla is now making moves to take battery production in house and has bought Maxwell Technology. And those efforts have lit a fire under the other automobile makers, so there is competition. So it’s not like there isn’t capable battery tech; it’s already good and it’s going to get better.
12
Yes.
I could not agree more.
Why aren’t MIT, Caltech, CMU and other top research universities taking up the challenge to quickly create the best and safest batteries for myriad power storage applications but particularly transportation and large scale power storage from renewable, NOT fossil or nuclear fuel, power generation sources.
A consortium of universities should be formed and then granted multi billions in research dollars to pursue these goals which are so critically important for the future of life on the planet. If SA wants to participate in this funding I would say OK, but with no strings attached except that Saudi Arabians need to be part of the research effort as well.
Our universities are our greatest resource for invention leading to positive transformation of society. MIT, Harvard and other elites should be leading the way in this important area of research. A new US president could help outline this challenge joined by other world leaders intent on slowing climate change but in the meantime the universities themselves should be jumping into the fray in a very big way.
9
Excellent article but sadly this is not new or news. Saudis have have had major money in US universities since the 70s.
10
"'Everything is for sale, anything can be bought in our country,' he said. 'And in this flow, he who holds the slightest cover of public authority uses it illegally to acquire money, goods, prestige, or to avoid obligations.'"--Mobutu Sese Seko, dictator of Zaire, speaking about his country in 1977
How did the U.S. become Zaire with the Infinite Corridor?
9
Money corrupts . Everyone .
That’s it .
4
Saudi students at American universities don't learn
about freedom, dignity, human rights that would
change Saudi society. When they return they take
plum jobs in the government and make no effort
to propagate enlightened ideas. May be they are too
fearful of secret services or simply don't care. By the
way MIT, though its Draper lab, is also involved in
creating weapons of mass destruction. Expecting
these institutions to follow any moral values is an
exercise in futility. Money is everything and perhaps
the only thing.
15
Exactly what, today, in the American human endeavor is not for sale? Not much.
The institution of higher education from which I graduated, up at the top of those lists in U.S. News, feeds hungrily at the trough of the American right and, contrary to the conventional wisdom, smothers anything on its campus resembling a left. It also smothers anybody who dares to criticize it. Did anybody really think you couldn’t buy MIT? Can you live in New York and not notice the names on the buildings of its cultural institutions? Will anybody not wash the dirtiest money? You don’t need much for those purchases, and even less, much less, to buy the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the president of the United States. Have you noticed what they’re doing this week? Setting up a government commission on their brilliant little invention called “natural law” to promote Christianity as the foundation for our laws. Forget the Enlightenment. It never happened. They’re selling our lives, our minds, our health, our morals, our values, our enfeebled democratic institutions, our government, and the common wealth of our nation — and for what? As they say in the courtroom, cui bono?
One thing we know, and that’s who doesn’t benefit: the vast majority of Americans who have not a clue what’s being done to them and who, having been propagandized into submission, gleefully celebrate, with their votes and their souls, their owners.
6
I would really like to now which schools are getting Saudi money.
6
Going once, going twice. Sold to the nice gentleman who stands for everything we pretend to stand against.
11
The level of welcome by the likes of Murdoch and Bezos for bin Salman's visit is enough to make anyone with a conscience gag. But the really apalling bigger picture is how the leaders of this criminal, petro state masquerading as a country have insinuated them$elve$ into so many and so many important academic institutions.
War criminal Bush 43 did our country no favor by inviting so much influence by individuals as odious as bin Salman who is not even the worst of them.
This disaster will not yield to an easy or simple fix. The Trump cult is joined at the wallet to these criminals and cleaning these parasites out of our own governance will only begin with disposing by impeachment or election of our own criminal in the White House.
7
Why is there so much Saudi Money in American Universities ?
Because there is too little US money for the number of researchers in US Universities.
At my institution, if you do not raise at least $ 500 000 per year in research grants, do not hope for tenure. And that $ 500 000 will support, by the time you pay the grad student, her tuition and fees,the user charges on the central research facilities the student uses and the overhead of 65% on supplies, equipment, even her air line tickets to visit a scientific conference , just four, that is 4 , graduate students.
To be a successful researcher, with a group of 10 you need to raise a million dollar plus per year.
The US is overproducing researchers relative to the money it spends at research Universities . The result is a full time competition for funds - with little time left for actually carrying out research and a 24/7 job
14
@Mike M.:
Sounds just like GOP congress members spending 75% of their time raising money for the party.
3
@Mike M. That's right. I worked at a major southern research university, and I promise you, everything Mike M says is true.
4
My son went to ASU and had a Saudi roommate who asked him to write papers for him and he would pay him. This roommate rarely, if ever, wrote his own papers. From what I understand, this is quite common with Saudi students. Also, the roommate also did not pay his share of the utilities, etc. even after I told him that he needed to pay his fair share of the bills. ASU and other colleges should pay close attention to what Saudi students are getting away with and stop turning a blind eye to what is happening.
26
No! The Saudi students like all the other Middle Eastern students here are very hard working! They may ask for help with English, but they always do good work!
@Lisa. They also bought the exams ahead of time at my grad school.
2
Money corrupts everything. Forget about the Humanistic values which, it is often claimed, Western Civilization is built on and the assumption that universities are the preservers of such tradition. Unfettered capitalism has turned American universities into predatory corporations that sell knowledge, prestige, integrity and any trace of decency that may still remain in them. They are also complicit in the betrayal of the country that legitimizes their charters. They are in the business of selling what foreign countries with money want desperately to buy: intellectual property, basic scientific knowledge, technology, and everything that some day could be used to destroy the sellers' country. Why aren't American students assisted with scholarships by their own country? Why aren't American universities a collective force promoting the access of American students to them with the same advantages as foreign students enjoy? The purchase of the United States of America by China, Saudi Arabia and some others, begins with the purchase of American university corporations.
13
I’m sorry! I work with a lot of Middle Eastern students, usually Muslim women in everything from Medieval Studies to Postcolonialism to Education and from Saudi, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon! These are individuals! They come here to learn! Money isn’t corrupting anything! When they come on the King Abdullah scholarship, they can bring spouses and children! It helps keep our graduate programs afloat, helps the economy and the students are very fine citizens with a much open mind than our politically indoctrinated PC students! We are grateful and enriched for having them!
1
The answer to the headline question of why SA spending to send Saudi students to the U.S. is quite simple:
To purchase influence with academic and business leaders, who often set the tone for American policy mavens. The kingdom wishes to substitute positive information about the kingdom while obscuring the anti-democratic, murderous, extremist nation Saudi Arabia has become.
15
Yet another good reason our colleges and universities should receive substantial public funding, and why admission to these schools should be based on merit and accomplishment, not a candidate for admission’s ability to pay or her proximity, by accident of birth, to Big Money and power.
Money corrupts. Big Money corrupts bigly.
The same principle applies to our elections, legislatures, courts, governors’ mansions and the White House.
10
@chambolle
I'm not sure bigly is a proper word. May I suggest you use big time to get your point across. Otherwise I agree with all the points you made.
2
@Benito President Trump used bigly. Therefore it is an American slang word. Still a word. Millions of students are learning from Trump. (yikes)
2
Many universities today are wealthier than some US states and many smaller nations.
"Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price”
4
@HapinOregon, Universities need money to pay
high salaries of the coaches and luxury dormitories
3
The explicit Republican policy of starving our public universities has become both a national security risk and yet another attack on the middle and working classes. Tuition is no longer affordable. To keep tuition at present levels however unacceptable, they desperately need the money that is flooding in from China and Saudi Arabia. What in the world excuse does MIT, my own alma mater, and its faculty have? Unbridled greed? Immoral opportunism?
For 15 years colleges and universities across the country have taken millions from a propaganda arm of the Chinese government (Confucius Institute) that seeks to influence curriculums and modify research outcomes on behalf of the Chinese government. The universities where this propaganda operation has established offices can be found here:
http://www.ciuscenter.org/locations/
We know what the Saudis and their prince are capable of. We know what China is up to. For example, it came out last week that China has begun taking children away from families in Xinjiang. (Yep, Trump pretty much invited them to do so.) This is like money laundering with a twist. MIT and the other universities help China and Saudi Arabia whitewash wrongdoing, even, for instance, crimes against humanity in Yemen or Xinjiang, and also permit China and Saudi Arabia to influence research, modify curriculae, and suppress the moral and principled public role of the universities.
15
In Oregon, there has been recent coverage of Saudi students "disappearing" while awaiting trial on crimes of rape and murder.
"Most puzzling is how some of the students were able to leave the country and travel internationally after they had surrendered their passports.
This is even more evidence that the Saudi government has acted to help its citizens escape justice for crimes committed in Oregon,” Sen. Ron Wyden told The Oregonian/OregonLive in response to learning about the new cases."
https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/01/gone-more-cases-emerge-of-saudi-students-vanishing-while-facing-oregon-charges.html
24
If these US universities had any sense of fair play towards other non-Saudi applicants for university places, they would have the good sense not to take the tainted money to allocate places. Similarly, the same tainted money goes to Madrassas & Wahabbi influencers, and possibly subsidising bone saw sales to Saudi intelligence! How does that make them feel? Keep them in their place as they would another country with no money to influence admissions.
Is that so difficult?
I guess it is, if extreme greed plays a role!
5
Eh, MIT. Saudi money is in far more insidious places, like rural Minnesota. Why there? The local community college has an equine science program, and the Arabian horse farms in Minnesota need more grooms and exercise riders. Or ever wonder why Rochester, MN has an international airport? Chartered flights from the Persian Gulf. Trump may care about the oil, but smaller businesses and Mayo Clinic care about the cash (your very own Mayo physician is $15,000 per day).
12
@Griffin
The Texas Medical Center in Houston which is a huge complex of hospitals and research facilities would be a much smaller place if it weren't for Saudi oil money.
Plus the Saudis have the big oil companies executives at their beck and call.
They used to be called the Seven Sisters in the 60's but through merger they are now the Four Fiefdoms. Chevron/Texaco/Gulf, Exxon/Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell. I'm pretty sure Saudi Arabia owns substantial shares of these companies.
I'm sure with Aramco having such a major influence when MSB says jump they do so.
4
Money is an equalizer in the sense that it's not just Saudi Arabia. Canadian and American universities love foreign money and will take it from any country - there has been an influx of international students in the past decade and there is no doubt that they are being actively recruited as universities are in the business of business, rather than education. China has its own share of misdeeds and ulterior motives though they are much more subtle about it than the Sauds... and yet we keep taking it. Admission scandals, donations and gifts... Foreign money in regards to international students also disrupts the housing market. Admittedly there is some bitterness - I am relatively new to the workforce but to see my own students living in a nice condo paid for by their parents and buying two million dollar houses with (likely) laundered money left a bad taste in my mouth... and yet their tuition paid for at least some of my meager paycheque and helped me get a better job. The cycle continues.
8
Keep digging. There are plenty of stories out there about the corrupting influence of Saudi money in academia. In an environment with stagnant grant funding and decreasing state support, many universities apparently feel forced to turn a blind eye to the dark sides of Saudi funding.
8
M.I.T. gets points for openly discussing the issues associated with MSB's money and draconian regime...and then folding? Arriving at an obviously predetermined result? How impressive.
Their ability to rationalize through Mr. Lester's British accent, tweed coat and easy habit of talking a lot while saying nothing must be reassuring to starving Yemenis and Saudi citizens subject to arrest, torture and death for questioning or criticizing anything. Rather than "appreciating facts", they are ignoring them. It's a lot easier.
Honestly? I'd rather talk to to his dog.
8
Very thought-provoking article.
I read through all the comments but saw no mention of these facts from the article: More than 700 Saudi students have been educated at Northern Kentucky University in the past decade; and the presence of these wealthy students and their families has been terrific for the local economy, especially the car dealerships. Of course, this article denigrates the university by adding that "the Saudis gravitate to less selective schools where they can easily gain admission."
The people who live near NKU must surely know who to thank for the boon of foreign money, their own Senator Mitch McConnell. And even if Mitch had nothing to do with the influx of Saudi wealth--which I doubt--he will seem to be responsible and will certainly take credit for it.
Slime and oil have one trait in common. They attach to everything.
16
Small wonder that the campus left both here and in Europe has become virulently antisemitic. Arab oil money buys more than madrassas in Pakistan; it also buys first rate propaganda in western universities.
9
Those keeping track of anti-Semitism often cite US universities as being locations where it is strong.
Now we're told the Saudis are pumping money into those same institutions.
Any connection?
4
On what day were the coffers of Harvard and MIT ever not open to receive buckets of money from the highly bucketed?
What are the budgets of the major state universities in the USA? The enrollments?
There is the American higher education establishment and there is a band of narrow guage journalists who think 92.6% of American higher education is represented by six schools in Pilgrim country.
2
Hate to tell you America, but America has rarely if ever been moral when it comes to money. America doesn’t love you, they love a winner. Same with these “institutions”. They were all created by rich people. The Suadis crashed planes into our soul less than 20 years ago. Do you really believe there is anything more important than cash?
13
I wonder if universities' acceptance of Saudi cash would ever be fodder for discussion in an ethics or philosophy class.
8
Please make a rule that equal numbers of male and female Saudi students must enroll. Education liberates.
6
This piece points to so much hypocrisy at so many levels...
First, Saudi influence had been a virtual nonissue before white America in all its shameless ambivalence ceded the political leadership and destiny of “U...S...A!” to a phony mid level mob boss and his global and national corporate autocracy.
Second, fairness in America’s “esteemed” higher education never existed. For every exception cited (whether anyone here deigns or deems it necessary to mention) there are more than a handful who have learned with due diligence to keep separate dreams from necessity in their own lives.
Third, but by no means last, any wealthy nation that consigns 12 million of its own children to living in poverty can make a claim to the pursuit of openness or fairness in its educational system.
4
The article is titled “Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?” yet it doesn’t seem to propose an answer. Instead it’s a list of all the Kingdoms contributions intended to outrage everyone into getting the universities to stop. Clever activism under the guise of “journalism”. Not news, just politics.
1
When big (BIG) money enters anything, from a research lab to a University, the ethics and "viewpoint" of that funded group gets immediately altered.
How many "studies" on Environmental Pollution were twisted to favor the opinion of Big Oil ? How many geographical landscapes were drilled, and fracked - ignoring the the permanent damage to the ground water, or the increased carbon pollution in the air ?
From a Crown Prince to a Bond Trader - their "God" is money. Any "altruism" on their part is merely a carrot on a stick, to (ta da!).... just make them more money.
From USC to MIT, the beat goes on.
6
Golden Rule - The one who has the gold makes the rules.
5
One may certainly be suspicious of what Saudi Arabia intends by pouring money into American universities, as this article suggests ought to be of the case. With the likes of MBS directly involved, all the more so. It would be interesting, however, to know in what specific ways Saudis would benefit by this involvement; and beyond that, in what specific ways this would compromise American interests. Second, in most every, if not all relationships, both/ all parties involved are subject to being affected, including even for the better, by new-found connections through formal and informal dialogue. So, who is to say that American universities wouldn’t “Americanize” Saudis to some appropriate harmonizing extent through the mechanism of Saudi financial outreach support of these universities? The issue is the becoming too insulated from and suspicious of the “other” ... though naively throwing reasonable caution to the wind in connections such as those mentioned, given the broader circumstances, is, in my view anyway, not prudent.
1
Excellent and enlightening article. For some additional perspective, since 2007, Rafel Reif, has served on the Board of Directors of Schlumberger's Nominating and Governance Committee with an annual compensation of $228,000. Schlumberger, the worlds largest oil services company.
8
When you escalate, privatize, and supercharge education along with everything else since the Reagan years, and turn universities into MBA-run businesses don't be surprised by blurred lines, the seeking out of lucrative funding sources, as even public systems have full-ride international preferences squeezing out local kids. The world is a global business now and let's be honest, everything else like traditions of morals and propriety and humanity are fig leaves that fall by the wayside pretty easily when targets have to hit. Ever talk to an ivy alumni fundraiser? Usually on the golf course or at a swank university club. Universities are global businesses full stop.
14
@AL Morality, as Ayn Rand discovered is the product of mans independent ,focused mind, not mindless, cowardly tradition.
Excellent article on the "trafficking of influence". It underscores how vulnerable American higher education is to the flow of money, opportunity, and pressure from a variety of sources. One could explore the systematic efforts by the Koch brothers and other financiers to gain leverage in economics departments around the country. Or the aggressive push to marginalize supporters of Palestine on American campuses. As s.whether noted in a recent post, many of our institutions have become dominated by corporate interests. In a world where we are constantly reminded of the pervasiveness of globalization we should not be surprised by Saudi efforts to secure access via its principal resource.....oil money.....when others with other interests do the same with the forms of influence most available to them.
22
@usa999 More socialist schools! More Progressive ed. More politically directed ed. More mindlessnes, superficiality and memorizing pretentious (but scholarly) drivel. Yeah, thats the ticket. That will...what exactly?
1
Have you checked the name on MIT’s cancer center? I think they’ll take money from whomever wants to sign the check.
2
Putting things bluntly, and in perspective, just maybe we can read a list of how the reality is corporate America has taken over two things we desperately need
Our Lives
Our World
Our health care: Corporations
Our medications: Corporations
Oil and natural resources: Corporations
Education: Corporations
Farms and food supply: Corporations
Our POTUS: Corporations
Our SCOTUS: Corporations
Our two-party system: Definitely a corporate play thing
Our legislation: Corporations
The war machine: Corporations
Our foreign relations: Corporations
What are our rulers getting out of it? Rich.
What are the rest of us getting out of it? Peonage & far less than what you're told...and for what we are having to give up for our faustian bargain - exploitation.
87
@s.whether Succinct.
3
@s.whether Your Leftist ability to evade the massive, virtually total political control of business is truly awesome. You must intellectually squint really tight. Oh, wait, youre talking about your transcendental ideal of equality, not reality. Never mind.
If it only looks like chump change then they're not looking hard enough. Yes, support for the alma mater can get a little personal, but it's really all about the dough.
Look where most of our politicians and journalists go to school. Elitism in America is institutionalized. Academic association is the glue that keeps the professional class socially seperate from the working class and poor. And money moves among the academic and corporate elite largely independent of politics, rhetoric and national borders. The NYT is a key institution of a modern aristocracy that supports a global world order based on shared liberal values and a whole lot of money (much of it from non-elite taxpayers and consumers). Sometimes the inherent contradictions get exposed, as here. We'll see if the crown prince remains a scapegoat or if broader issues are examined.
5
@carl bumba >money moves among the academic and corporate elite largely independent of politics
When Nazis kicked Jews out of German universities, was that good?
To instill an ongoing wonder of the Earth, and to attempt to foster a finer appreciation and understanding of our place on this planet is paramount. We all need instructions and tools to live in better balance with each other and the environment at large.
When universities,.. or any institution charged with the furtherance of intellectual inquiry and free speech succumb to moneyed interests that are the antithesis of this important idea,... they are simply showing their true nature.
11
Unfortunately, many American universities are part of a corrupt system that is discreetly but profoundly influenced by money.
Just like the MeToo movement, there needs to be a movement to expose such universities, many of which are well-know and powerful 'Ivey Leagues'.
21
@Farnaz Your evasion of decades of Leftist and conservative treason in not attacking the state sources of Jihad is noted.
As an alumni, I am ashamed of MIT's continued economic ties to Saudi Arabia, and have been vocal to Reif about it including demanding his resignation. Unvarnished greed. Why would we trust this organization that shows such poor judgement to teach our children? Count me out.
40
Great article. The best analogy for American capitalism is prostitution, everything is for sale.
As an American poet said, "money doesn't talk, it swears."
What is lacking is any weight being given to ethics in Board decisions, whether university boards or corporate boards. Why not start a movement to require an ethicist on every board, so these issues are at least made explicit in every decision?
25
@priceofcivilization—The article stated the difficulty of determining the ethics of transactions with some donors vs. others. How about a category "not at this time" with stating appropriate reasons? After all, many donors use U.S. universities for their own branding, so these institutions should look carefully at their association with donor interests.
1
The Saudi money helps the Republicans by taking pressure off them to fund education through higher taxation. They can then return the favor ten fold. It's classic quid pro quo. Education is politics. This is political corruption. The Republicans let the Saudis get away with murder, literally. There isn't any other way to clean up D.C. but to start putting people on trial. We need a return to the rule of law.
28
This man brought cholera, the scourge of mankind, to his neighbors in Yemen. He and his money are immoral for us accept.
34
Universities and colleges are businesses. As such they will take money from anywhere because they, like corporations, claim a right to immorality if it pays. A person needs to find their own moral core and not depend on the brainwash mills like universities, and more broadly religion. Religion mostly being one of the propaganda arms of capitalism, at least in the US.
8
@Chris Pragmatism has been the intellectual guide to US education since 1920 w/Marxist John Dewey’s Progressive ed. He explicitly substituted society for knowledge. You evade the Leftist ideas which dominate US schools.
I wouldn't be surprised if since Bin Salman's murder of Mr. Khashoggi, the Saudi's have upped their "contributions" to all manner of US institutions.
24
@frank
I, too want to be rich. My family values and morals can be separated from my greed pretty easily.
Just look at Tony Soprano.
1
Yeah, these foreign actors have their fingers (money) in every pot. They are in our media, news, universities, government, courts, banks — everywhere.
When you notice things aren’t right in the world — when you see changes in the way corporations, government, and courts treat customers, citizens, and victims— you need only common sense and objectivity to understand that dark money and large-scale male pathology are at play.
9
There is no amount of money that the Saudis could throw at universities that could genuinely convince anyone that their regime (which only nominally, and under international pressure outlawed slavery in 1952) is anything other than corrupt, repressive and retrograde.
The Saudis aren't allies in the traditional sense by any means. Rather, the US and the Saudi regime have had a not so tacit agreement to support each other based on US military might (and technical know-how) and Saudi petroleum reserves. Each is given access to the other, an arrangement that dates to the FDR administration.
What is far, far more worrisome is the influence of the People's Republic of China through donations and campus Confucius Society outposts. It is even more worrisome that one has to rely on right wing news outlets like National Review to see this covered consistently.
13
The elite donor class doesn’t pay their fair share thanks to tax law and lowering their tax rates and expansion of loop holes. This has been created by both political parties falling over themselves to give the 1% a free ride. This goes the same for corporate taxes and legal off shoring of Corp profits as well and eve more so. This is at the heart of why our nations universities are owned by corporations like Dow, Monsanto, Pharma companies, military contractors and yes foreign countries.
These same corporations and foreign countries own our government and our political parties.
Time to tax the 1% and corporations at the same levels of 1960 and write new tax code that doesn’t favor the ruling elite and corporations and allow them to hide trillions overseas. Then make Corp lobbying illegal and remove corporations bribery from our elections and our democracy.
This will make our universities independent from the corporate interests and control of our education and research. It would also turn this plutocratic-corporate tyranny for the 1% back into a democracy for us all.
25
@ma77hew >our nations universities are owned by corporation
And, yet, curiously enough, are dominated by Leftist ideas. Somebody should tell the corporations.
1
...Only in American universities? I am sure Saudis money is everywhere...I wonder how many loans they have given to our aAmerican business men and politicians. Otherwise it is difficult to understand why our government consider them a good ally .
15
@Tess
They aren't a good ally so much as we have a not so tacit agreement with them in regard to the US protecting the Saudi regime in exchange for Saudi Arabia being a supply of petroleum for the US should we ever need it. This arrangement goes back to the Roosevelt administration.
4
@Tess You are correct. The Saudi family used to have about a trillion dollars in U.S. markets. I don't know how much it is today, but If they pulled out their money, our markets would be toast.
5
@JAS
They already made a movie about it - "Rollover."
1
Thought provoking article and comments. When Saudi students leave American universities what liberal values take with them back to their home country? In the 70s I came into contact with Iranian graduate school communities. My impression is that it is the women who were mostly transformed. As for the Saudi men in current times, my impression is that we are a playground for vices and that their only loyalty is to transactional relationships such as the Kushners. As for the American university business model, there is a dark side. The academic standards are among the highest in the world, but I question if they use excessive student loans to prosper at the expense of the taxpayer and if money dilutes ethical standards at so many levels.
21
Congress regulates the sale of weapons in this country. Why doesn't Congress regulate these "gifts" to American institutions? After all, education, especially in fields of nuclear physics, engineering, etc. is a weapon in the wrong hands. Why isn't there federal oversight about who can purchase our knowledge. That's exactly what these foreign states are doing, those who lack the ability to gain knowledge on their own soil. We have the best universities in the world. Isn't this a resource we should protect or at least regulate in some way? Right now, it's a free market sold to the highest bidder with no strings attached.
12
Would their students get in without all of these suspicious donations? If so then why are they so dependent on the West for everything CIS. Our tutors are very happy to write their papers and take their exams.
11
This should not be surprising, we live in a capitalist society and money will always grease the wheels of our commerce. Deals like this are part of the lifeblood of a healthy and thriving economy. Basically according to Trump, it is not necessary to ask where the money is coming from, we should just accept it because it benefits us.
Whether the purchase of our armaments, generous contributions to our institutions, or the purchase of an entire floor at Trump Tower these modest sums (at least to the Saudis) contribute to our healthy economy.
If an American journalist must be dismembered along the way, well, then so be it. It is not worth wwringing our hands about. We must learn to take the long view.
1
I am happy to see Saudi students in the US and happy that the government is funding them and the universities. Saudi Arabia and the US are inextricably tied at many levels. What is good for Saudi Arabia is good for Texas and vice versa.
1
What? You can’t be serious
1
@as
Unethical
It takes a lot of cash to buy respectability. On this point, the House of Saud is no different from any other mogul in America.
5
Nothing was ever gained by having an isolationist mentality. As long as we are sure that Saudi funded students are not here to do us damage, their attendance at US universities can only have an upside. They return to Saudi Arabia having had the American experience in all its facets, This will influence their thinking going foreword and can only serve to migrate the Saudi culture more in a more civil Western direction. There may be some downsides, but the upside potential is far greater. Yes, it is very uncomfortable to accept money from an unsavory source, but as horrible as the source may be, in the long term, we generate a better world by being able to educate, and by giving Saudi students the American experience.
1
@ron No they actually have gotten worse when returning to Saudi Arabia. For three decades and more they have been here attending our top Universities. Perhaps some learn moral values, but it seems most went back and don't their citizens to have freedom, except for the elite royalty. It is mostly the elite who come here. Were not the 15 saudis responsible for the 9/11 attack educated right here in the US? They learn to fly but not to land? No you are wrong, They do not want our values. They want our technology.
12
@ron. The university experience is not the American experience. It's a bubble quite unlike environment of the average American. An informant to this article stated that the first thing most Saudi students do when they get here is buy a car. Hmmmm. I bought a bicycle and took public transportation. Significant numbers of my classmates struggled to pay rent, books, and lived low paycheck to low paycheck. I also could change my major if I wanted to and didn't have to worry that if I spoke out against university or government polices either I or my family bad home would be murdered.
9
"Why would M.I.T. want to sully its national and international reputation for chump change?"
"M.I.T. spent about $3.6 billion on its operations last year, and its endowment, $16.5 billion, is the sixth-largest among American universities ... The money it receives from Saudi sources is relatively modest, less than $10 million in many years, though the school has received individual gifts from Saudi billionaires of as much as $43 million."
When a university has that much money, accepting donations becomes a habit, a feeling of entitlement. Although few have had to grapple with this addiction, it is one that is hard to overcome.
Those who manage the endowment are not ethicists. They function in the world of profit and loss. Saudi money is profit.
12
This exposé of university collusion for profits and money exemplifies "corruption" with a capital 'C.' (The USA's new motto could be the three 'C's: capitalism, corruption and chaos.) I worked in both private and public universities--in many cases, the public ones were the ones who abused the system the most. More such exposés need to be brought to public attention to start cleaning up the 'quid-pro-quo' between schools and questionable donations.
7
Because an American degree is a valuable status symbol in a country with too much money and oddly not enough valuable work due to the nature of their extractive industry (Saudi oil pretty much just flows out of the ground under pressure, it's not as labor intensive as other places).
I'd rather their students come here and be exposed to western liberalism, how we treat women, LGBTQ and people from other religions or the non religious, than simply hear nothing but what the wahabi clerics want them to hear.
Someone has to make up for the shortfall in state funding for universities, which is the real cause of the student debt crisis. Might as well be the Saudis, since every dollar spent on education is a dollar not spent killing kids in Yemen.
2
@Ken. I read a lot of rationalizing the acceptance of money than legitimate reasons to continue a relationship with the Saudi government. The Saudi government is not moderating in any meaningful way. Women driving cars? So what? They can still get stoned to death if suspected of having an extramarital affair, be forced to marry their rapist, and require male permission to do anything. Saudi students here may be exposed to American norms but what makes you think they will internalize our values (which are not universally shared) regarding LGBTQ status, religious pluralism, etc. And even if they do, Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy; they have no agency and can lose their lives for expressing disagreement. Yes, someone does have to make up the shortfall in state funding for public higher ed - that would be us. We can demand that funding be stored to 2008 levels at minimum and elect state legislatures who will recommit to just that.
5
I would like to think that Saudi students absorb some of our values when they attend our universities but my experience with them left me skeptical. We accepted a big (30-35) cohort of Saudi men about 10 years ago. They were terrible students and most were reported for academic dishonesty at least once. A few were expelled for repeated reports. We suspected that quite a few of them purchased assistance with writing papers and computer programs.
They mostly lived off campus and socialized only with each other so I’m not sure how much acculturation actually occurred. When interacting with faculty and staff they tended to be aggressive and unpleasant - very entitled. They would argue endlessly over any policy they didn’t like.
Within 3 years most of them had been suspended or expelled. Only a few actually earned degrees. My university is not exceptionally rigorous so I suspect the group we got were among the weakest of Saudi students.
We stopped recruiting Saudi students after this experience. Even though we have had challenges maintaining our enrollment levels of late, no one has suggested going back to this particular “well”. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
6
Is the money from Saudi a different color than the money from US Corporations, Right WingThink Tanks, the Kochs and the Hedgies? The right question to ask is, why would private entities seek to pump money into Universities. They do it because brainwashing minds is most effective when it is done early. The earlier you teach a person about "demand and supply" and how anything social is communism and the best way forward is social Darwinism using the profit and self-aggrandizement motive then the better the land lies for all prosperity to flow to the top 1% no? All Educational institutions should exist purely for the betterment of Society as a whole. The less millionaires and billionaires a country has, the better its citizenry live, both in mind and body. America is a society based on enslavement of one section for the prosperity of the slave holders. Yesteryear's slave owners are not different from today's Corporate slave owners who use the Capitalism card to enslave everyone to enrich the owners of capital.
7
@Paul Art very well said, and truthful. Wage slavery is the same thing as chattel slavery, just a modern variant of what enslaved Black people for centuries here. The more socially responsible public and private universities become, the more we’ll see the withering of the hold that big money from national and international sources has on every aspect of political and economic life, both here and around the world.
1
@Paul Art >The less millionaires and billionaires a country has, the better its citizenry live, both in mind and body.
Hunting-gathering and primitive farm economies are proof of that.
But, Chinese money throughout the US, and even the world, gives them leverage to violate human rights. However, how many universities, colleges, and even Hollywood, have actually turned down Chinese offerings?
11
I am an MIT alum and was not aware of this.
This is not good for the Institute nor right. (I except from this the tuition payments for students; they might help catalyze reform at home.)
The KSA is a bad actor in almost every dimension. They are not our "friend" -- remotely, and we have no values in common. Best to not do business with it.
15
“It was money speaking, and the temptation to hook up with a massively funded kingdom.”
"Money" has passed speaking, powering, ordering, yelling, and demanding and has simply become God. Many are happy to bow down to It.
8
Mr. Khashoggi’s murder was horrifying.
But the crisis in Yemen seems far worse.
Yet it is Khashoggi’s murder that seems to get more attention and reaction.
Presumably because we see a person and it is so graphic?
While what we see in Yemen are more statistics?
4
@Independent
Yemenis citizens are mostly very poor. The saudis don't like Yemen because Iran is trying to help them. Not that I am a friend of Iran, but they treat their women infinitely better then these god awful Saudis. who treat women like dogs. I'm not fooled by this King who says he eased restrictions by letting women drive but then jailed the woman who drove on her own.
6
The Saudis pulled all of their students, and money, out of Canadian universities overnight in an attempt to bully the Canadian government after a perceived slight over human rights. To their credit, the Canadians took the financial hit and ignored them. Beware the day they try to pull something similar here.
31
@Curbside
I admire the Canadians for that when I read about it. Why can our institutions do the same. But then again nothing will change when politicians and corporations profit from these murderers and human rights violators.
10
The repressive kingdom is only interested in American educational expertise honed and chiseled over the years. Any moral or ethical values undertaken to achieve this milestone is shunned as blasphemous.
7
Saudi Arabia is investing in preventing the education of the next generation of Americans. They don't want young Americans to know the truth about our government's relationship with Saudi Arabia or the truth about what happened on 9-11 or the truth about our government's response to 9-11, vis a vis their country.
9
Moral courage v Reality. A senior Harvard official afraid to be quoted on any Saudi comments. Demands for MIT to disassociate from Saudi funding, ignored until the Khashoggi murder. President Trump, the heads of Apple, Amazon, happy to welcome, legitimize, socialize with the Prince.
Khashoggi, Yemen. Sudden outrage. Way down the list- the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia (and other countries).
Candidate/Former VP Biden, criticized for past dealings, compromises with segregationists, apologizes for the hurt his comments might have caused. In the next Democrat debate, perhaps the first question should be ‘ which of you, as president, will follow Canada in delivering a diplomatic rebuke to Saudi Arabia?’
Which candidate will object to the treatment of women in these theocracies? Which will stand up for....Western Values....the values that created the colleges, the advances, that foreign students (and global refugees) now seek to take advantage of - while their governments eschew (aka trash talk) those same values.
Elite colleges. Presidential candidates. Money talks. Oil talks. And women are property. Perhaps we are learning, Middle East values.
9
@Jo Williams Yes i do wish the candidates should be ask these questions at the next debate.
4
You really should not report our majority vote losing president's* "quip" that the Saudis are buying billions of dollars of US arms without noting, if only briefly, that this is an often debunked lie. He has often thrown around figures like $110 and $270 billion, but the actual figure is a small fraction of that. The remainder is either entirely fabricated or based on letters of intent that are neither binding nor likely to result in sales anytime soon. The WaPo fact checker has given this oft repeated claim four Pinocchios. (Equally fallacious is his related claims that these sales will create tens of thousands of US jobs, which is a ridiculously inflated figure, a number which he has subsequently increased to hundreds of thousands and even millions, which is beyond fantasy.)
4
How are we substantively different from the Saudis? We’ve waged ruinous wars in the Middle East causing humanitarian crises, we torture detainees, we execute civilians often using barbaric methods, we have an oppressive law enforcement and justice system, we have oligarch rule (they have monarchical rule), we are major polluters and contributors to global warming, we spend ridiculous amounts on military hardware, we are moving to curtail women’s rights. What makes us morally superior to than them?
Like other powerful entities, these higher education establishments have been corrupted by money and have betrayed their calling. They are training the undeserving scions of oppressive regimes and economic competitors over more qualified and patriotic American students who lack raw financial muscle. Perhaps it’s time to tax their endowments.
6
MIT's reputation as a leader is unparalleled. Recently, Reif wrote the alumni a beautiful letter in defense of immigrants and Chinese researchers in particular. No other university has said this so forcefully and eloquently. Others have just quietly ejected tenured faculty and erased their labs. I was so proud of MIT!
Then there is the question of Saudi Arabia. I asked Reif what behavior by MBS would be unacceptable to MIT, and cause MIT to sever ties with Saudi Arabia. If murdering and dismembering a US green card journalist is not that line, where is it? I have donated a lot of money to MIT, because I believe in its ability to educate and lift up underrepresented students. I feel my donations are now tarnished by the relationship with Saudi Arabia.
9
I get the sense that the Saudi's are held to a different standard than other countries. People are protesting Saudi money in education at MIT, but do they protest Chinese or Israeli money (there is considerable evidence that the Chinese have killed multiple citizens in other countries, disappeared families, and are currently attempting to destroy Uighur culture; the Israelis have targeted Palestinians for extrajudicial killing in other countries, and have denied the Palestinian people rights and in Gaza, basic humanitarian items.) Or what about the U.S.? We have executed many people (is injection better than a headman, I don't know), invaded other countries on dubious pretexts, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, and extrajudicially executed our own citizens. (As for the Saudi government's funding 9/11, I have seen no solid evidence for this, the U.S. government would likely have known, and not tolerated it, and bin Laden called for the death and overthrow of the Saudi royal family, which would make Saudi funding for his organization pretty strange, to say the least.)
Fascinating article. Exemplary work on the part of the NYT.
Others will comment on what they perceive to be MIT et al's hypocrisy to take money from despots. Still others will moan about colleges taking money from corporations. The first is hypocrisy and the second is just more ignorance about capitalism.
One fact and one observation about this article.
The fact that Saudis can write contracts mandating the govt be informed about the student's grades, majors, etc is astounding. Why? These same school administrations will under no circumstances advise American parents who pay for their children's education of the same information. This is hypocrisy. It is very much indicative of the character of academic administrations.
The observation that "faculty members & students want universities to reflect their own sense of moral clarity and purpose" is accurate. It also reflects the outsized notion of what these faculty members and students believe is their right to dictate what is acceptable and what is not.
What's the point?
Hubris.
Saudi hubris is built upon oil money and the knowledge that many people in all walks of life will compromise their professed beliefs in order to get some.
University hubris is built upon their conceit that they know better than anybody else and can distinguish between acceptable moral outrage and unacceptable moral outrage.
A really sad commentary on the dark underside of academic capitalism and selective moral outrage.
3
One of the most depressing and ominous facts in human history:
With trillions of dollars in oil money from the last 80 years, Saudi Arabia has not bothered to build any great universities of its own.
10
This is actually not true. Saudi Arabia is most certainly a regressive state in many respects, but they have invested billions of dollars to begin building universities in their own country (eg KAUST). Overtime the education these institutions provide will act to change their country internally.
1
Great Question!! We should be as concerned with Saudi Arabia taking over as we are with China. I can only imagine their glee in finding a willing stooge in Trump and Kushner who surely dream of great payback deals with Saudi Arabia after they lose the next election.
Universities should heed the signs but I fear greed will prevail. Interestingly, in Iceland, when the local Muslims were granted permission to build a large Mosque, on prime land no less, Iceland revoked their permission when they found out it was being almost exclusively funded by Saudi Arabia.
Do we never learn?
9
@Concerned American
I read that to and also they are funding most Mosques build now in Germany. They want to export their extreme religion and very severely punishing religious laws. Western Societies better beware of the Saudis and their dubious intentions.
2
Please. This is not something that started with the current administration. Its been going on for decades.
1
At least three reasons:
1-Money speaks. It overrides and silences moral and ethical issues that are systematically ignored by the Saudi's (e.g. the Khashoggi case)
(US universities are eager to balance their budget with plush Saudi monies)
2-Saudi's may be sending their trouble making youth out of Saudi Arabia (SA) to avoid political dissent in their own backyard, (but they try to control the moves and 'free speeches' of all their students , in the US). They can identify the potential trouble makers, for future prosecution in SA, after they return.
3-To continue spreading their extreme Islamic teachings, Wahabi and Salafi, within the US
5
American universities need to put human rights before cash. If the country has an abominable record on human rights then the admissions committees round files the applications...
3
Having spent a brief time in both KSA and Tunisia, I found that KSA was oppressive to the human spirit - so many rules about simple human behavior that I had to adjust my brain to *not* do many things. ("Don't look at a woman directly. Don't look at her children. Don't speak about political matters. Don't say you're an atheist. Don't even think about going to Mecca, you'll be executed as a non-believer.")
OTOH, I found the men and women of Tunisia to be liberated in both dress and speech, but still true to the spirit of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). And the university professors I met - many of them quite accomplished women! - were a breath of fresh air and enlightenment.
I can't imagine the next terrorist attack against the USA coming from a Tunisian; however, I have *no* trouble imagining him being from the KSA.
5
An education in the United States or in other western countries does not assure that a top,student will not return home and become a brutal dictator.Bashar-al-Assad took part of his medical specialty training in London.Tyrants and murderers should not be able to buy their way into respectability by donating to our colleges and universities.Bin Salman has been identified by the CIA as the person who ordered the brutal murder of Khashoggi-a journalist working in the United States-MBS should be persona non grata here-ditto his money.Disinvestment in South Africa was the important cause of the last century and had widespread support-do we not now have the same passion for the Saudi dictatorship and its bad behavior simply because they can pay us to be silent.That is disgraceful!
9
MIT knows money. It will invest its thirty pieces of silver wisely.
2
I would be interested to know the ratio of men and women Saudi students.
6
All this moral grandstanding makes us unwise. Why alienate an entire population and its source of cash just because its leader is barbaric? The more that Saudis come to the U.S. to be educated the more likely that Saudi Arabia will become liberal or pro-West. Keep them coming, keep their money coming, welcome them and enlighten them in the process - just watch them closely when they are here. And if you are worried about technology transfer.... just sell them last year's model; they'll never know the difference.
Money corrupts universities as effectively as it does politicians and their constant quest is for it is akin heroin addiction.
7
I don’t want to hear from liberals anymore about morality, at every level our leaders are bought and paid for. This talk of moral choices is windowdressing to the fact that money is all that matters to these people. Money is all that matters in America.
1
One has to wonder why a country - any country, really - allows foreign powers to "invest" in it. Oh yes, I forget - it is *profitable* and plays into the lie of "good foreign policy", but in reality, it's just about money.
And the selling of what should be American land and resources.
Of course, seeing how 'American' land and resources were all taken from the native populations in the not-so-far-past in an act of genocide, well, we really shouldn't call this land 'ours', should we?
Yet to sell one's own backyard really is quite foolish.
Ah, but profit. We can't see beyond it. It blinds us, it delights us, it makes us wet and all tingly inside. We respect it, we fear it, we love it, perhaps even hate it. We run to it, we live for it, we work hard for it, and we'll kill for it because it is good and we want it, we need it, it is Necessary...
As an ex-drunk, I am well aware of that state of mind. I sold many things back then for a few bucks (thus a drink).
What are you selling, America? What are you pilfering from The People to satisfy your wants, your 'needs'?
What won't you sell, America?
8
So, we have a group of extremely wealthy American parents whose money is earned from glamorizing American life in entertainment and fashion about to go on trial for huge financial bribes (no matter what they call them) to send their under qualified children to USC and some east coast top tier schools. And we have an extremely wealthy, corrupt and dangerous nation doing something similar when it sends its often under qualified students to primarily Ivy League schools. Throw in a horde of political hackers from Russia.
Then we have middle class American students taking on insurmountable student loan debt to earn a degree from more standard American colleges. Add in asylum-seeking immigrants who would love a chance to just work here for sub-standard wages and maybe some day take some courses at a community college instead of living in cages.
Follow the money . . . follow the money . . .
11
There is nothing wrong with using this money to teach people about the ethics of murdering reporters.
If the money doesn't control the lesson, then keep taking it. If it does, then spit on it. After all, the political party currently in power isn't going to see to it that people are afforded the education they deserve.
1
I've been in the habit of comparing the Saudis to the Beverly Hillbillies but have decided that I was being unfair to Jed Clampett and his kinfolk. Jed shot a bullet in the ground and up flowed oil; he however did not change appreciably and mansion aside, still remained the same humble man he had always been. The Saudis poked a hole in the ground and spawned 10,000 indolent princes. The entire Saudi state is based upon goo oozing out of the sand, with nobody ever getting their hands dirty, save for the foreign labor they import to perform any essential duty, including intellectual. Mr. Bone Saw couldn't even be bothered to receive any education outside the country, which is why he was so mystified at the world's horror at the Khashoggi killing. and why he felt no hesitation at ordering it.
The sums of money being quoted here mean nothing to the Saudi's because they've never had to work for it. The $650 million dollars donated over a seven year period is chickenfeed. Mr. Bone Saw reportedly bought the resurfaced Leonardo " Salvator Mundi" painting for $450 million and then hung it in his yacht when its legitimacy was questioned. The one thing the Saudis have learned however is that, as the Roman Emperor Vespasian said, "Pecunia non olet" ("money does not stink").
6
Universities, especially the those of great reputation, should be the last bastion of integrity with only the cleanest of money, in a time when the dirtiest of money infiltrates every corner of political and corporate life.
6
When thermodynamic collapse is fully upon us - a fast approaching reality - Saudi Arabia will revert to the tribal society of Lawrence of Arabia. The kingdom’s attempt at diversifying its economy is nothing more than an acknowledgement that their lifeblood - Ghawar - is on life support and that when the oil is gone so will SA be gone. And I say good riddance. Matthew Simmon’s book Twilight in the Dessert describes the condition of SA oil extraction industry in fascinating detail. No amount of M.I.T engineering “brilliance” can offset the geologic realty of Peak Oil. Our planet and our climate will welcome the demise of this odious country.
5
This is bad, but it's a drop in the bucket. The Koch brothers dole out $10 million nuggets to endow economics professorships — on the condition that those spots are filled by Austrian-school economists chosen from a Koch-approved pick list — and it's not even a story any more.
2
@JL Williams Austrians recognize mans independent mind as the source of economic value, a horror to Leftists lost in emotion-guided statism.
This is a slippery slope. If direct gifts from "bad" countries are to be rejected, how about gifts via scholarships to their students, who might then go back and join "bad" governments? But, couldn't they then be the catalysts to turn their countries "good"?
Many of the philanthropists who underwrote these top universities were robber barons, racists, or otherwise less than saintly. Some of today's donors fit this mold as well. So what? Money is money.
As long as Trustees, administration and alumni play a suitable role, this type of political correctness is going to far.
4
Ironically, Mr. Leo Rafel Reif, the president at M.I.T. is the son of Eastern European Jews who immigrated to Venezuela in the late 1930s.
5
Love it!
Trying to buy a favorable public image and win greater acceptance amidst persecuting gays and women and carrying out beheadings and torture and dismemberment of critics.
I would welcome the repeat of the refusal of their money which Giuliani did after being offered a check immediately following the 9/11 attacks by Saudis.
(Of course, he's now deep,deep, deep into getting paid by them and the so-called president.)
4
@AWENSHOK
it is truly puzzling. We salute the Saudis who educated students here, then had 15 fly into our world Trade Centers without any repercussions. No we instead went into Iraq. Iraq had nothing to do with this terrible attack, had no WMD's, yet the Bush/Cheney administration convinced 80% of US citizens of Iraq's WMD's. They bombed Iraq and killed what? about 100,000 innocent civilians in response to our 2900 civilians. All because the Bushes were close friends of the Osama Bin Laden family? Wow. They should have gone into bombing the Saudi's. No, we instead had to make up another enemy?
2
Saudis own a big chunk of Uber too—I think it's the "Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund."
1
Too bad all of that oily money can't buy intelligence, class or decent manners.
4
And morals.
2
Sounds very American: Money rules.
1
First off, can some of you people get off hating Trump, etc. long enough to stay on any topic?
Saudi money has been buying USA real estate ever since they got into petro dollars many years running now. That concerns me far more than them sending a kid to college here and some probable good rub-off from the locals here.
Heck, maybe they'll turn a few into liberals via our campus incubators and can make the NYT bunch here happy with Saudi leaders some day?
As for Asian students, when my twins went through the U of KY engineering graduation day the program was ~ 95% Asian names I could not pronounce. Sure they are students that work hard, pay the extra bucks, etc., but my tax dollars are also often involved and build the buildings these universities all crave.
My home town of Topeka KS had a world famous, private mental treatment called the Menninger Foundation/Hospital where one of my brothers worked in treatment. When I was a kid the rumor mill in town told us how many of Hollywood's big names were passing through behind the secret bushes there.Later, it was very commonly known that a large number of young Saudi princes were treated there and more than a few were "serious nxx cases", not that the USA doesn't have it's own share. Read into that what you may...
1
Whenever there is 'free' flow of money, and no public supervision or/and regulation, in a capitalistic system devoid of ethics, it is just natural that corruption (and greed) becomes the order of the day. And the Saudis are some of the most corrupt; just look at assassin prince Salman, getting away with murder, and keeping his transactional friends 'alive and well' (and yes, this includes Jared Kushner and Donald Trump, a royal shame fot the U.S.).
3
Monetary influence of Universities is nothing new. Consider the University of Chicago founded in the late 1800's with donations from Rockefeller. Rockefeller was strongly opposed to labor unions. (see Ludlow massacre)
Rockefeller family continued support for the school when it almost failed in the 1930's. Rockefeller wanted to change the way the US thought of capitalism, labor unions and prevent the expansion of any ideas that seemed socialist or were promoted by Roosevelt.
From his efforts, Paul Samuelson, a University of Chicago student published the first High School textbook on Economics. The theories are based upon mathematical card tricks meant to fool the public. What a success!!!
Rockefeller got what he wanted. Spooky to imagine what Saudi Arabia wants.
2
Universities are not moral pillars anymore. Harvard, MIT etc. produce few original thinkers and a whole host of yes men.
3
This is a big shame, universities like M.I.T and Harvard going after Saudi money, they can easily survive without that money. These universities should set an example for other universities by taking a political and moral stand They should disassociate from the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia who murdered the journalist Jamal Khashoggi,
The Saudis are awarding large gifts to institutions against whom they are openly preaching hate — universities in the liberal West — in order to mold perspectives and produce future leaders. In other words, they seem to be bribing and winning over people who are in positions to criticize and expose things about Islam and Saudi Arabia.
3
geez.. can the writer just get to the point? Like many NYTimes articles the article goes on for ever and ever with little substance. No dollar amount is mentioned until the 9th paragraph.
A important part of the article discusses the large amount of Saudi students getting college or graduate school educations. So what? It's good for the country's people.
Now how about Iran? America puts all these restrictions on the country, but they too come to the U.S. for education. For example: Texas A&M University has 201 Iranian students, only 51 Saudis.
Ref:http://iss.tamu.edu/ISS-Information/Statistics-and-Reports
Amazing this serious question has not been asked till now !
1
In the United States of America, lobbyist and image consultants are always busy. Is fairly obvious that the Saudis have infiltrated American institutions at many levels. Don’t we have the saying “money talks”? Indeed the Saudis have learned of this. The Saudis also send hundred of thousands of “students” to learn English and other subjects. I have met few of them, although none of them attend local mosques. Though, they are womanizers and heavy drinkers, this part I don’t understand. I have heard that they received large stipend from the government as they are considered “ambassadors” of the kingdom.
1
MIT's motto is "Mens et Manus", minds and hands to express the combination of intellectual and practical skills. When it comes to dealing with the Saudis and especially the blatant ignorance of their atrocities in Yemen and the involvement of MbS in the murder of Kashoggi it is very clear that the "Manus"part prevailed. MIT held open its hand for cash contributions and sacrificed the "Mens" part of its motto - integrity, intelligence, intellect. Shame on them.
4
You'd think that America's evangelicals would be all over this, what with their fear of Muslim Sharia, AND their general hatred of higher (secular) education!
Their attention is currently taken up with justifying our abuse of little children in our internment camps, I guess.
America is so terrified of any new mosque that gets proposed! So suspicious of a Muslim Congresswoman!
But trump's extreme coziness to a Muslim extremist who has murdered journalists? The Saudi family members quietly flown out of the country on 9/11? (The only plane allowed in the air that afternoon)...
Can anyone explain why trump's Muslim ban excluded the Saudis? I swear, Hillary Clinton got (gasps of horror) paid for speaking at a bank, so she's totally in the clutches of big finance, right? So......what do trump supporters do in the face of this Putin secrecy and trump's obvious preference for Wahabism?
2
"The universities are not clear about what they should report ... it's such an obscure corner of the Higher Education Act that some institutions overlook it". Aww chucks! And the emolument clause is such an obscure corner of our constitution that even our highest leadership just plumb overlooks it. What's happened to the moral compass of our nation?
4
The US should cut almost all ties with Saudi Arabia. They are a classic case of a backward, murderous, medieval band of men who happen to sit on oil. They offer little else and will fall eventually. Shame on the US government, universities and real estate developers who deal with them.
We should do nothing to lengthen their reign of terror.
3
It is all about buying influence. 19 Saudis caused nine-eleven and yet we did nothing to them for that. Saudis chop up a journalist, and we do nothing for that. Ain't nothing you need to know beyond those facts.
3
So much for "institutions of higher learning..." Any fool can be bought off.
2
Over and over we hear about and read of Saudi Arabia's crimes yet sanctions and saber rattling are focused on N. Korea and Iran. Mean while Iraq paid for Saudi's terrorist attacks on NY.
I shake my head. I grimace. I write comments in the NYTimes.
2020 cannot come soon enough.
5
Many American universities are now more about amassing money than educating students or encouraging research. This is true of their counterparts in many other countries as well. Academic freedom and a commitment to democratic values come well behind . . .
13
Saudi Arabian funding for high profile American Universities has been going on for a long time. This is, in effect, old news. It is a longstanding attempt to purchase influence among American leaders and influencers. It is a form of bribery.
It apparently has been effective, since the United States continues to favor Saudi Arabia despite concerns about its support of terrorists, its human rights record. and its continual attempts to get the United States to fight wars on its behalf.
We no longer need their oil or really anything from them. In the 1950's we were dependent on Saudi Arabian oil. and they needed our money. Now we have Donald Trump telling us that he favors Saudi Arabia because they purchase so much real estate from him.
16
The science departments of many of our universities are now just extensions of many big business interests including Saudi oil. In an escalating war of seeking financial support, science has become very narrow at most schools. The scientists that are brought in as professors work in fields that are directly related to large monied interests. So, if you care about the pursuit of science as finding truth, understanding our environment or if you care about climate change, the American university has already lost its way. The voices that would speak up for science as something other then an arm of industry have been quieted because they are not the scientists with the jobs. Is the Saudi money any different from the money from pharmaceuticals? Human rights is not their priority, money is. If we want universities to be a place where we study for the sake of learning and are moral and ethical centers, then we must support those schools financially. Professors should be hired based on their science not on if they can bring in grant money. The veneer of universities being someplace outside of commerce that seeks a higher places is peeling away. Universities are supposed to represent the best of our society, instead they just represent our society exactly how it is.
33
“Study for the sake of learning” is a long-gone value in American education. I know, because I’m a college professor. Everything is now, and has been for some time, perceived in terms of economic use value. If you want to study the humanities or social sciences or foreign languages, you take upon yourself the responsibility of paying back huge debts for little recompense, a condition that you are often ridiculed for.
The results are, or should be, obvious: less diversity, added ignorance of ideas intrinsic to democracy, increased selfishness and provincial attitudes, more public coarseness, added acceptance of the dog eat dog mentality, enslavement to such horrid entities as Saudi funding...one could go on.
Even faculty and most especially college boards are fine with this. “Learning for the sake of learning” is deemed too abstract for students to understand, thus becoming an anachronism
A most depressing article, but one that is vitally important even if administrators do absolutely nothing in response. One day, it might pay off in a return to some vestige of sanity and humanity.
6
@Tristan
I perfectly agree with you that basic academic Scientific research is being taken hostage by Corporate money and greed and profits are dominating curiosity driven research.
1
Well, I was surprised to learn China sends 300,000 students a year to U.S. universities. I don't understand why we have ever upward tuition, subsidized by the government and supported by a huge loan industry, and yet we still are waving in any and all foreign students willing to write a check to study subjects that have been taught for decades for a fraction of the cost. Where is all of this money going? Knowledge keeps getting expensive, but I am not sure the economics are making any sense. Meanwhile my cousins' businesses are starved for workers because vocational schools have been dumped in favor of educating a wave of paper pushers, where resume piles are hundreds deep. Once robotic process automation gains traction, paper pushers beware!
16
@TL How does a complaint about rising tuition have to do with foreign students? You think if they stopped accepting foreign students, tuition prices would drop? That seems a little implausible.
3
Wouldn't it be awesome if M.I.T., and other elite institutions were the frontrunners of energy conservation policy, that used the Saudi investment dollars to create renewable energy solutions sufficient to get America off the heroin-supply of oil, gas, and coal?
We need to invest in our real future, i.e., renewable, planet-friendly energy, and then the Saudis, and UAE, and the other Koch-sponsored pirates could keep their poisonous contributions.
28
@Betsy good observation, but it will never happen. There is just too much oil, gas, and coal available (ie we aren't running out by any means)...and its too cheap. There is no incentive whatsoever for large corps to invest in anything renewable
4
@Betsy Well if the US doesn’t buy oul then as things stand someone else will buy it. Unless something fundamental happens. We need a big change, everywhere.
Having a large number of Saudi students at American Universities is nothing new. I attended Portland State University in the late 1970's and early 1980's. There were many Saudi students attending the school at that time. I worked at the school with many of them. They were usually very conscientious students. One thing not mentioned in the story is that if a Saudi student is charged with a crime the Saudi government will get them out of the US in a hurry. The Oregonian has ran a series of articles on this issue and Oregon Senator Ron Wyden is working to hold a senate hearing on this issue.
16
There is no mystery here. Saudi Arabia gives money to American universities for the same reason that many individuals who have obtained their wealth through illegal or suspect methods give money to charity - to buy themselves a favorable public image. Whether this kind of marketing campaign is still effective in the age of the internet and social media, where bad publicity spreads like wildfire, is questionable.
25
Good reasons for the cash. 1. As Trump shows, money can buy Saudis love. The universities love and need cash. 2. It helps get many young men, always the flash point of revolution, out of the country. China showed how it is done.
33
From the article:
"The Saudis signed three contracts that day, for a total of $23 million, two of them to extend existing research projects with M.I.T. The other one was for a new initiative between the university and Sabic, a Saudi state-owned petrochemical company, for research into more efficient refining of natural gas."
Let me guess. The third research grant (the one in the House of Saud's wheelhouse) went to MIT's David H. Koch School of Chemical Engineering Practice.
MIT has had a practical school of chemical engineering for decades. It wasn't until DHK gave the school $150 million that it got branded. Like most schools focussed on practical applications, it's mostly about converting raw materials into family money.
As the world warms more quickly, MIT may have some branding issues.
57
Money is money, depending how one uses it.
Sometimes it is more difficult to ask a good question than finding the answer to that question. If one doesn't engage, one will never find out the question and the new paradigm shifted.
We benefit not just financially but the whole new frontier of different culture and thinking. MIT is not just for America, it is built on new research initiative to benefit us all.
2
@Usok, that is very cool, so why is it OK for a government, and an adversarial one at that, to buy outsized influence? That is the opposite of 'exporting American exceptionalism'.
This is fascinating: I looked up MIT's international students' nations of origin for 2018-19. Many, many nations have over 100 students enrolled, including France 127, Israel 61, Germany 117, Japan has 81.Ireland has 38. Saudi students? 7. Seven.
How many other governments are buying that much influence for so little return? I intentionally left off nations with more students, but poorer governments, like Hungary and Haiti. If a nation's government can't afford to buy influence, why should another's?
When the Saudi government starts demanding non-coed dorm rooms and screens erected between men and women in classrooms, will that convince anyone that this type of influence is not a good thing? Money is not always good.
6
@Usok
Yet MIT has often made decisions regarding their direction of research that lean toward the interests of its large benefactors,
2
As an adjunct lecturer , I saw first hand how college administrators blatantently looked the other way on cheating, rules and regulations, just so that the students will continue to come, obtain a degree and pay the full fees. Objections by staff would result in not being offered teaching positions again. Guess it's for the college's financial survival.
50
@Eela Thakrar True dat! The same can be said for PhD programs, where based on my experience there is a double standard: One for (foreign--all Saudi) students paying in full in cash, and the (American) ones on financial aid/departmental funding. Guess who always makes candidacy despite blatant cheating?
8
These schools are struggling nonprofits that need to raise money any way they can.
One option many readers have is to stop filling up and support public transportation or EVs. Every time you fill up, you support a petro state.
13
@Vote with your pocketbook Many of the institutions names are far from struggling and possess massive endowments. And any struggling schools should seek more moral ways to augment their finances if they expect to have any integrity in the eyes of their students, alumni, and the stakeholders they serve.
27
@Vote with your pocketbook.....US in #1 oil producer in the world....so keep filling those tanks. The Schools have to address their Sport and Athletic Programs which are siphoning Millions from unwitting students who have amassed tremendous personal debt.
1
When my son was applying to university In 2016 I found a report that counts foreign students by country. China, India, and Saudi Arabia were the three highest. Clearly China and India have capacity issues but Saudi Arabia never built first class institutions - all that money and they never invested in their own- they always bought the best- purchase what they needed but never developed their own. That’s weird- right? Why is that?
92
I see your point - all that money and I can’t name a single product or company I know of that was created by Saudi Arabia. Then invest all over the world but not in their own country. Outside of Aramco they don’t seem to encourage any entrepreneurship. Maybe they want their populace completely dependent and compliant.
16
@Deirdre
It speak to an unstated embarrassment that the KSA has nothing to produce that others would want - except oil. Unlike China and India, they have no deep belief in their own creativity. In fact they fear it.
4
@Deirdre Because a thriving top university on Arabian soil would inevitably develop into a source of political dissent. So better let Saudi students go abroad for a couple of years.
135
I was a student at University of Texas at Austin 3 times in my life. The second time I lived in a run down private dorm right across from the campus. It was an all male dorm with a large number of international students.
I was friends with an engineering student from Lebanon with whom I reconnected with last year on Facebook. Nice guy who took to American college life very well. He enjoyed partying and chasing women. I think his fees were paid by his country. Through him I associated with other foreigners as well on a social basis.
There was a student from Iran who was more serious about his studies who had a picture of the Shah on his nice stand. This was before that country got destabilized. His fees were paid by the Iran since he was studying petroleum engineering.
My friend got a Master's degree in civil engineering and went to Saudi Arabia and worked there most of his life. I often wonder if the Iranian wound up back in Iran or if he went elsewhere.
There was one other student who I think might have been from Lebanon. A strange duck who didn't stay a student very long as he was belligerent to his professors and was tossed out. He was already radicalize in my opinion and had problems with the APD.
My thoughts about MBS is that he's the exact opposite of bin Laden but just as dangerous. Whereas Laden was a fundamentalist in his belief and plotted and financed 9/11. MBS enjoys his royal status but will kill any reporter that opposes his authority and regime.
75
@Benito
Lebanon is a non oil country and never paid for its students to go abroad. In addition the educational institutions of Lebanon are well developed and established. The American University of Beirut is considered top American university outside the USA and it was established in 1866. University Saint Joseph (USJ), a top french university was established in 1875. Please get your facts right and avoid generalizing.
2
@Samer
Dear Shamer,
I am aware of the lack of oil in your country. You need to know I met this group of guys back in the early 1970's.
If you recall there was a civil war that went on for many years during that time. Perhaps some of these students had wealthy parents that could send their children out of harm's way.
If you're old enough to remember Lebanon had such a stable history up until that point it was where the other Gulf States did their banking. It was referred to as the Switzerland of the Middle East.
Prior to returning to Texas I worked in NYC at an international private bank. After I left they established a branch in Beirut but then left after the civil war broke out never to return again. I'm sure the instability has affected your country's growth ever since.
For some reason you seem affronted by my comments. I would have liked to have seen my friend's country. He grew up in the highlands of the country and often spoke of the beauty of the mountains. Maybe in another lifetime since I'm now 70 I'll visit.
One last item since you brought up the American University of Beirut, In 1984 its president, an American , Malcolm Kerr was assassinated by Islamic terrorist. This in a country where Christianity was welcomed as much as other religions.
Maybe your country will now have a long period of peace after all of this turmoil. I hope so.
5
It's all about the Benjamins - time for a thorough investigation into university funding and endowments. Slippery slope? Maybe, but these well endowed universities have money out the wazoo. There are too many unscrupulous actions swept under oriental rugs on so many levels at these institutions of "higher learning". I think they've learned a lot about how to get foreign money, keep their entitled legacies from being prosecuted for criminal behavior, sexual and drug abuse; they hold their noses , put it on ignore. Not to mention the pitiful methods used by high wattage wealthy people to get their less -than-average talent kids into "only the best" schools. What happened to rigor, challenge, selectivity, preparation, intellect, honor and ethics? It's seeped out of the cracks of higher ed, just like it's seeped out of government!
51
@BabsWC It is the money, just follow the money! Look the "wanna be dictator" in Washington and his ilk just follow the money for they do not care one iota about ordinary Americans. Unfortunately Trump's base is not very bright otherwise they would see that most of the time money corrupts individuals completely. Just look at Trump he surely is a prime example.
2
So basically the country who FUNDED 9/11 is now FUNDING America. America no longer exists. There are no ethics or morals. Trump, politics, it's all a charade to hide that act.
322
@Mary S If you think that at one time America had these ethics or morals, I suggest you revisit our history and/or speak to this country's indigenous people and other marginalized groups . . .
9
Let’s not forget that the country that funded 9/11 was also ‘funding America’ under the Obama administration. This funding did not just start two years ago...it’s been going on for a while.
8
@Mary S. Nearly2 decades after 9-11, it still stands out that the only leader to forcefully and unequivocally reject Saudi money (for a 9-11 memorial!) was Trump advisor Rudy Guilliani. And he took plenty of heat from the liberal wing for that principled stand.
5
there is no reason to trust the Saudis as the Crown Prince directed the murder of an American resident who was a saudi and critical of the Crown Prince and the Kingdom. No University or educational institution should take money from the Saudis. they bankrolled the Ossama Bin Laden, made us fight a war in Afghanistan and Pakistan called the War on Terror, ( which is ongoing) and now contrives to get Trump to attack the Iranians, as they are enemies of the Saudis, mainly due to the Sunni/Shia divide. God help the USA if we get involved in these horrible Saudi people who run the KSA.
134
@antineocon
Forgive me but you sound more like "neocon" than "antineocon." Khashoggi's murder and Yemeni civilian casualties are terrible, but where were you when the US supported Chili's Pinochet and the atrocities he committed, for example?
If Saudi Arabia bankrolled bin Laden, it was to help him support Afghanistan rebels against the Soviet occupation. I doubt they helped him with his 9/11 terrorist act. What war in Pakistan?
1
Maybe MIT should open a satellite research facility in Yemen.
98
The same thing that any other country, for example,
Israel, gets out of such investment: Influence, advantage
and protection.
I believe that the British are still major investors in the U.S.A.
Have been since 1789. As did all European economic polities.
Of course, Japan did this big time in the 1980's,
just like China Now and in the immediate future.
I think Adam Smith called this
"The Dirty Invisible Hand Jobs"
A bad Eco 101 joke? Or rather just the Naked Truth.?
21
@son of publicus
Which Adam Smith are you referring to ? The English economist or The guy who wrote The Money Game under the psuedonym of the first Adam Smith.
DIHJ sounds more like a phrase that the second one would use since The Monet Game was a somewhat satirical look at Wall Street in the 1960's It was my favorite book about finance.
8
@Benito
The economist Adam Smith was not English. He was a Scot.
@MHS
I stand corrected. I'm one of those ignorant non-washed Texans who refers to to all residents of the Islands out in the Atlantic as English.
I do know however there is Scotch Whiskey and Irish Whiskey but have not encountered English Whiskey.
Long live the Queen.
1
Nice article showing the complexity of decision-making for universities which need varying channels of funding to be sustainable. But what about the Wahhabi elephant in the room? Wahhabism, is inextricably linked to the House of Saud, Saudi leadership, and Saudi governance. No review of Saudi Arabia's conduct is complete without examining Wahhabism, which, if examined closely, is not that different from the beliefs espoused by Al-Qaeda and IS? Now that the world is no longer dependent on Saudi oil, why is Saudi Arabia not on the sanctions list? Does Saudi spending on lobbying, the stock market, universities, weapons purchases, and ex-Presidential endowments have anything to do with it? The Saudis are not our friends. If they had no oil, their great contribution to humanity would be farming sand. The United States is nothing if not a commercial engine and the author's piece brings it all home. A major university benefactor has to do something pretty egregious for its money to be returned. Khashoggi was no angel but he didn't deserve to be murdered, chopped up, and dissolved in acid. Obviously, that kind of government-sponsored conduct does not cross the line for US universities. Money still talks.
204
@GreatVancouverX Why is Saudi Arabia not on a sanctions list, since the USA no longer depends n their oil? Probably for the same reason the Bush II administration did not launch a war on terrorism in Saudi Arabia in 2001 or early 2002. The blindness then was not due to Saudi oil. America was could tap ample resources in Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela at the time. Now, same as then, the Saudis had what American industry craved more than Middle Eastern oil. The Saudis had piles of money, which they were willing to use in ways that propped up the American arms and education industries, and they were willing to play nice with a small but well connected friend of America.
24
@GreatVancouverX
Not on the list for a number of emolument concerning realities: including: a gift of $100m to Ivanka's Women's fund on the same day that the arms deal was signed (but we have an arms deal whined T, after Khashoggi's murder, can't break that) The article was in Daily Kos if you want to check it out...
10
@GreatVancouverX You are absolutely correct with your comment. I am afraid things will not change any time soon especially when you have a "wanna be dictator" president in Washington. For sure, and sadly enough, things will not change in my lifetime. I am Canadian (became a US citizen for finacial reasons some time ago) and wish I would be younger in order to move with my US husband back to Canada where I still have family. Canada is not perfect but more conducive to a wholesome life, more peaceful, less depressing and provides respite for a tortured soul.
12
The research the Saudis are funding will eventually fund what's going on in Yemen.
No matter how tiny a fraction - the question is, whats the factor by which $7 million in research contributes to Saudi Aramco's profits? that's what really matters. No "liberalizing" massaging as with New Haven's criminal-justice program can explain that away. Or perhaps finding ways to make blood-drenched inhuman killers and murderers increase their incomes will make them more humane?
18
Universities have been pressured to turn down funds from big oil, the military, Saudis, Israelis, etc., but the fact is that they depend upon external funding and cannot afford to set a precedent that will lead to ever more loss of funding. Exceptional cases must be made, such as with South Africa, to get them to take action. So far the Saudis haven't crossed that threshold, but they're getting closer each year.
7
Does anyone recall the name Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? You may remember him as the architect of 9/11. Already radicalized by 1982 in Saudi Arabia, he enrolled in an undistinguished private college in NC in 1983; he later transferred to a historically black state-supported college in NC where he graduated with an engineering degree in 1986. Most small private schools are desperate for money, and like the flight instructor in Venice FL who was paid to teach the terrorists to take off but not land, money overruled judgment. It's been going on for over 50 years and probably more at hick schools than elite universities like MIT.
248
@Eli In Western NY there is a small private college that has many male Saudi students year after year enrolled in a graduate program in......special education....to be special ed teachers. Yeah, right. They all do their undergrad somewhere in Texas, and come, en masse, to this one institution. With the low standards in teacher prep programs, and the current decline in enrollments in all such programs, they are of course accepted at this institution. The article pointed out that the Saudi students are ill-prepared. Faculty at this small college report they are also disinterested in their field of study. What better way for them to get into a Western college than to send them into the field of education, where almost no one is denied admittance, and almost no one fails out. This Saudi money must be a god-send to these small colleges. I am very curious about the hidden motive behind Saudis getting a degree in special education. I doubt it is to differentiate instruction in the Kingdom.
15
@Eli When American colleges accept Saudi donations, they are undoubtedly entering into a deal with the devil, which is why US institutions must receive greater public funding. But the abhorrent actions of the Saudi government, which has virtually no accountability to its citizens, are not a reason to refuse Saudi students on government scholarships. These students are an important liberalizing force in the Kingdom. Denying them an education or experience in the United States works against our interests.
1
@Robin
Hey NY Times,
This sounds like a story. Please go and ask these students about their interest in special ed.
1
Just because you have a billion dollars from your dad or "uncle" does not mean that you know how to solve a differential equation or a LaPlace transform. Money cannot buy you knowledge! Money is the root of all evil and Universities are sacrificing their good name for it. I sincerely hope that these top Universities are not letting "marginal" Saudi students graduate with degrees from their Universities.
25
@Theni money buys you tuition so you can get more knowledgeable
7
Love of money is the root of all evil.
Money, on the other hand, can buy you a tidy little house, get your 2012 car fixed, pay the dog's medical bill, allow you to buy an old book you've been eyeing, and put food on the table. That is why sensible people slog to jobs they might not enjoy and put away a portion of their salaries.
1
This is truly terrifying in ways hard to describe. It makes me wonder, what, if anything, can be done? America's soft power, what I would describe as second to none on Earth today, seems to no longer have the oomph it once had. We've given little other than honey to SA and vinegar to Iran in efforts to liberalise both and not much has changed. In fact, neo-liberalist regime change either through hard power of the 60s-90s and mixed hard/soft power more recently has only set the world back and caused unnecessary war and strife, the effects of which we still see today, so what do we do? Honey or vinegar? How do we fight authoritarianism anymore when it has claws buried so deep in the global economic fabric of the modern era?
16
@Nick
How do you begin? Should we hope that good actions will bring about good results? If so education and shining a light on evil may lead to incremental change. However, it would be naive to think that US institutions will take the high road so long as the US head of state and his family are morally bankrupt and financially in bed with despots... yet are still supported by their voter base. Sad. Wishing you all a happy 4th and hope for the future.
31
@Dan Thank you for your good wishes! We in the US need all the good wishes we can get and the courage for the Americans to vote this "wanna be dictator" in Washington, DC out of office!
1
So, do we hold the American people accountable for the mistakes of the Trump government ?
The program of sending Saudi students to America has been forty years …
Saudi Arabia Arab coalition forces in Yemen under UN resolution 2216 Saudi Arabia is a country that respects international law and order
2
@Mofarh
Of course we Americans are responsible for the "mistakes" of the Trump administration. "We" elected him, and are therefore responsible. That's how democracy works.
Why do you think that the length of time Saudi students have been coming here is relevant?
Our media has been telling us that Saudi Arabia has been trying to eradicate the Yemenis. Is it possible we have information you don't because our media is still free to report what it wants? Or do you work for the Saudi government? I doubt that, because I think if that were the case, your comment would be more sophisticated in nature and expression.
37
@Linda Saudi Arabia is a country that respects law and international order and participates in the Arab Alliance for the Rescue of Children of Yemen under UN resolution 2216
Where does international law sanction the murder of a dissident journalist on embassy territory and dismembering by bone-saw?
Perhaps you can cite me the statute.
8
This is just one side of the appalling way universities fund themselves. Of course, there is corporate funding, but at least the conflicts of interest are noted there. Seldom mention is the military money that funds research, endows chairs, and establishes centers and department on campuses. Money comes not just from the Department of Defense but other federal agencies such as the Departments of Homeland Security, Energy, Justice. The are 17 Intelligence Agencies that may fund campuses- it isn't just the CIA. Military recruiters are huge funders of universities. Wonder why our universities don't speak out about war? Pat Shanahan, former Boeing guy who just "retired" from his Secretary of Defense post, was board chair at the University of Washington, where there are so many Boeing departments and professors and collaborators that your head can spin (Boeing is the 2nd largest military contractor in the world.) It's the Money, the weapons, the influence that has University administrators and academics in bed with The American military and their good buddies, the Saudis.
95
@Kathy Barker - I went to MIT in late 1960s anyone that thinks the place was ever liberal doesn’t know the history of MIT, I was not an administration favorite. I learned much about the ‘world’.
3
“Why would M.I.T. want to sully its national and international reputation for chump change?”
Good question. My guess is the one referenced earlier in the article— they don’t want to set too large of a precedent. They do a slap on the wrist so it seems like they aren’t totally ignoring the issue, but if they took a truly principled stand then people will start examining their other ties and demanding similar action in those cases.
120
@Donald
It's that science and engineering tend to be apolitical. Like in that Tom Leherer song:
Once they go up I don't care where they come down.
"That's not my concern" said Werner Von Braun.
2
@Jim S.
We aim at the stars.
1