The university which refused the author of a race report an honorary degree has showered them on a string of controversial Chinese and Malaysian figures.
It emerged this week that Nottingham University withdrew an offer of a degree to Tony Sewell, who wrote a report last year for Boris Johnson concluding there was no evidence Britain was institutionally racist.
It said he could not have the honour because his report had made him the ‘subject of political controversy’.
The university’s list of people with honorary degrees published on their website includes figures such as Liu Xiaoming, the former Chinese ambassador to the UK.
Former prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, was jailed for 12 years in 2020 after embezzling £537million from a state-owned investment firm
Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, former chief executive of Malaysia Airlines had to apologise for sending an insensitive text message to relatives of victims of the MH370 plane disaster
But, despite this, the university has conferred honorary degrees on former Chinese ambassadors who have cast doubt on the Uighur genocide, and a Malaysian politician found guilty of embezzlement.
At the same time, a senior official at the university has earned almost £150,000 from a Kremlin-linked firm suspected of supplying steel to build Russian tanks.
Nottingham University has campuses in both China and Malaysia.
The revelations will spark allegations that the university has been hypocritical in giving honours to controversial figures while denying one to Dr Sewell.
Last year, Dr Sewell, who runs a charity helping black children to get into university, published a report on racial disparities which found that Britain’s multi-racial society should be considered a model for other countries.
After the study was severely criticised by lobby groups, Nottingham University wrote to him to say the honorary degree they had decided to give him in 2019 was being withdrawn as he was the ‘subject of political controversy’.
Despite this, the university’s list of people with honorary degrees published on their website includes figures such as Liu Xiaoming, the former Chinese ambassador to the UK.
He dismissed videos showing Uighur re-education camps in the western Xinjiang region as ‘fake news’, and denied that China operates a forced sterilisation programme there.
After being confronted on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in 2020 with clips appearing to show shackled prisoners being herded onto trains, he insisted Uighur Muslims live in ‘peace and harmony’.
It has also emerged that a senior official at Nottingham University has earned almost £150,000 from a Kremlin-linked firm suspected of supplying steel to build Russian tanks.
Stephen Odell has been on the university’s council since May last year and until last week was on the board of Evraz, whose biggest shareholder is Roman Abramovich.
Fu Ying, another former Chinese ambassador to UK, questioned claims of human rights abuses against the Uighur people.
Stephen Odell has been on the university’s council since May last year and until last week was on the board of Evraz, whose biggest shareholder is Roman Abramovich
A Foreign Office report this month said Abramovich has ‘effective control’ of Evraz, and it accused the firm of being involved in ‘destabilising Ukraine’.
After taking up a job as a non-executive director with Evraz last June, Mr Odell earned £105,000 for just over six months’ work.
His pay continued until he stepped down from the board last week, meaning he earned as much as another £40,000. He served on the steel maker’s audit, pay and nominations committees before quitting on Friday.
A University of Nottingham spokesman said: ‘These awards predate the introduction of criteria to preclude the award of honorary degrees to figures who have been the subject of political controversy.
We are satisfied that this criteria has been robustly adhered to since its introduction, as in the recent case of Tony Sewell.’
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