Oxford professor resigns as 'university accepted money from Trump's financial backer'

Leading professor claims Leonard Blavatnik gave a huge amount of donation for Trump's campaign

A professor of Oxford University has resigned from his post after he found out that his university’s main patron gives biggest financial support to US President Donald Trump.

Bo Rothstein teaches government and public policy at the Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. The school is named after Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonard Blavatnik who funded £75m to set up the school.

The leading professor of the Oxford claimed that Blavatnik also gave a huge amount of donation in the Trump campaign, calling it “incomprehensible and irresponsible”.



Rothstein said in his resignation letter: “President Trump stands for a system of governing that is completely contrary to what I have come to define as ‘quality of government’.” He added his own research had found that “quality of government” was very important for improving the well-being of human beings.

“As I see it, Donald Trump’s policies are also antithetical to the goal of the Blavatnik school of government, which aims to improve the quality of government and public policy making worldwide, so that citizens can enjoy more secure and more fulfilled lives,” he further added.



A few hours after the professor resigned, a spokesperson for Blavatnik denied that he had given any amount of money for Trump’s campaign.

He said Blavatnik only donated $1m (£770,000) to Trump’s inauguration committee which he claimed helps to organise public and private events during the week leading up to the inauguration”.

Giving their stance, Oxford University said: “Len Blavatnik did not contribute to Donald Trump’s campaign either before or after the election, although he did make contributions to the campaigns of other Republican candidates.”

However, Oxford was also criticised earlier in 2015 by a group of academics and in a letter published in the Guardian urged the university to “stop selling its reputation and prestige to Putin’s associates”.

The article originally appeared on The Guardian