Professor Adam Habib, the vice-chancellor of SOAS University of London, recently questioned whether universities invoking institutional neutrality on Palestine would have done the same in relation to Nazi Germany or apartheid-era South Africa. The vice-chancellor of the University of Manchester, Dame Nancy Rothwell, made her position clear last month in an open meeting with students at the School of Health Sciences. During a discussion about the university’s ties to BAE Systems and Tel Aviv University in the context of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, Dame Rothwell was asked whether she would have sold weapons to Nazi Germany. Her response was no. “Because the UK Government was not neutral. We are neutral where the UK government is neutral.” ….more
