Luke@wlukewindsor@c.im
The main reason the right hate Universities is that they are international communities. Just under half of the community I support come from overseas, and over half of my leadership team grew up outside the UK (and some of them did their doctorates here before becoming academic staff). More than half of the largest School in my home Faculty were impacted directly by Brexit as they were/are EU citizens from mainland Europe. Our Provost grew up in China and our President is from the US.
So when we make decisions and go about our business of education and research it is always within a global context informed by those global backgrounds, and that is anathema to the right’s ethno-nationalist agenda. Long gone is the recognition of the soft power we have bought, never mind the direct economic benefit of our work.