Call for University Investigation into Far-Right Influence

On Friday 3rd December, we released an open letter to the Divinity Faculty at Cambridge. Our letter draws attention to the contradiction between invitations extended by Dr James Orr to Jordan Peterson and Charles Murray, and the Divinity Faculty’s explicit anti-racist commitments and solidarity with students of colour, as expressed in its June 2020 statement ‘Race, Theology and Religion’. We call on the Faculty to a) publicly distance itself from these invitations; and b) make good its claim to solidarity, through devoting material investment and Faculty time to anti-racist work. We have received an outpouring of support for our letter, from within and without the University. Moreover, we have received confirmation from signatories that these invitations are indeed causing reputational harm to the Faculty. All of which proves true our claim that the Divinity Faculty must combat its burgeoning image as an incubator for alt-right ideology.

However, recent revelations have made clear that the problems facing the Faculty are considerably greater than we realised. On Friday 10th December, Byline Times published an investigative piece, which shows that the invitations to Peterson and Murray were not isolated events. The investigation reveals how James Orr, together with other members of the Faculty and wider University, are part of an organised network, formed with the direct involvement of Peter Thiel’s chief of staff, Charles Vaughan. Thiel, the founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, has risen to prominence in recent years as a major donor to Donald Trump and other figures on the American right, whilst his antagonism toward universities is longstanding. Vaughan – the investigation alleges – personally attended and indeed ‘presided’ over meetings of this group of academics in Cambridge, in 2016-17. The investigation claims that it was Vaughan who originally encouraged Divinity Faculty members to invite Peterson to Cambridge. Moreover, these individuals are tied to a network of institutions, such as the Free Speech Union, through which they influence UK Higher Education policy, including the 2021 Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill. This Bill exploits the myth of left-wing ‘cancel culture’ to turn universities into potential playgrounds for conspiracy theories, alternative facts and hate speech, or else risk fines and costly lawsuits.

Thus, the problems facing the Divinity Faculty are not limited to the rogue actions of one of its members. Rather, a group of academics either directly employed by the Faculty (James Orr, Douglas Hedley), or else affiliated to it (Michael Hurley), form the core of an organised, externally supported (possibly Thiel-financed?) group of Cambridge academics, who are seeding an ideology that is fundamentally, indeed deliberately hostile to the University’s aims and values, as expressed inter alia in its Equality and Diversity policy. The repercussions of the work of this fifth column affect the entire University environment and even the whole of Higher Education in the UK.

In consequence, our initial aims are no longer sufficient. In addition to our original call for action from the Divinity Faculty, we are calling for a University investigation (with the assistance of any relevant third parties) into the revelations of the Byline Times article. Such an investigation must address the following:

1. Grooming: the investigation alleges that this group has been proactive in enlisting students to its cause. In particular, it claims that ‘academics in the network started to recruit interns to work for Peter Thiel’. Thiel has form here, being known to financially incentivise undergraduates in the US to drop out of university. Have Cambridge students been made the same kind of offer? On what basis were these students selected? What was asked of them? Were they subject to coercion/pressure? Even without the ideological context of this group’s activities, any group of academics recruiting students for private patrons – especially with track records like Thiel’s – would raise safeguarding concerns. The University must seek out the testimony of students offered such internships, in order to assess what exactly occurred and whether student welfare was compromised.
2. Radicalisation: Moreover, given that individuals in the orbit of this group are sympathetic to ‘race science’, the radicalisation of students is a real possibility. Under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act (2015), particularly ‘Prevent duty guidance’, universities are legally obliged to counter possible radicalisation on campus. Charles Murray is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist; Gloria von Thurn-und-Taxis, who spoke at Trinity Forum Europe in March 2021, has claimed the AIDS pandemic occurred because black people ‘like to copulate a lot’, is a friend of Steve Bannon and a supporter of Cardinal Carlo Vigano, both known proponents of QAnon. Given these clear links between Trinity Forum Europe speakers and extreme ideologies, the University must investigate whether Trinity Forum Europe is a centre for radicalisation activity within Cambridge. The University must also investigate what exactly the ‘Trinity Forum Curriculum’, advertised on the Trinity Forum website, contains. Finally, the University must investigate whether other such speakers have been hosted by Cambridge academics and advertised to students.
3. Money: Have the academics named in this report been in receipt of money (either personally, or through affiliated third parties, such as Trinity Forum Europe) from Thiel, his companies or associates? Has such money been used to fund activities on campus? Were such monies properly disclosed? Has such money been used to secure the influence of these academics in their wider, professional activity within the University?
4. Institutional Integrity: Has the Thiel group sought to make institutional changes, in order to make Cambridge a more suitable home for far-right ideology? The amendments made to the University Statement on Freedom of Speech would suggest so. Among the proposers of these amendments, we find some of the key names from the Byline report. The first amendment removed the expectation that staff, students and visitors be ‘respectful’ of the differing opinions and identities of others. The justification for this change was that ‘we should not be expected to respect all opinions or identities that the law permits, e.g. patently false views concerning vaccination or climate change’. However, it is clear that the end of these amendments was precisely to make it easier for speakers with crank views on both climate change and vaccination to speak in Cambridge, since Jordan Peterson has consistently expressed both. The University should investigate whether members of the Regent House, who voted for these amendments, were misled as to their intended effects.
   
   Moreover, a number of the figures listed in the Byline investigation have been prominent critics of the outgoing Vice Chancellor (VC), Prof Stephen Toope. Their names regularly appear as authors/contributors to the rash of articles that have appeared in mainstream British media attacking the VC, especially on the question of ‘free speech’ and policies around race and the University’s colonial legacy. Was this wave of media pressure on the VC an organised campaign, seeking the VC’s resignation? Do we thus have evidence that third-party interests, hostile to the University’s ideals of inclusion and diversity, have provoked changes at the very highest levels of University leadership, with the help of University employees?

The University must initiate an investigation, in order to fulfil its legal, counter-radicalisation obligations, as well as its safeguarding responsibility to its students. More broadly, only an investigation of this kind can secure the University’s autonomy and vision of itself as an inclusive and diverse learning environment, in the face of demonstrable, hostile external involvement in its affairs. Finally, such an investigation is the only way the University can discharge its responsibilities to its partners in UK Higher Education. We call on all University of Cambridge organisations and individual members, as well as any others who are disturbed by these reports, to support our demand for a full investigation.