A professor of government and public policy at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government has resigned over allegations that one of the university’s biggest benefactors has also supported Donald Trump financially, The Guardian reports. Explaining his resignation, Prof. Bo Rothstein claims that Leonard Blavatnik, the Ukraine-born billionaire who provided £75m backing to build the school, also made a substantial donation to support Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration. The decision to accept Blavatnik’s money back in 2015 was heavily criticised by a group of academics, urging Oxford to ‘stop selling its reputation and prestige to Putin’s associates’.
Blavatnik also happens to be the major backer of the new Tate Modern extension, which opened in June 2016. In May this year it was announced that the building would be named the Blavatnik Building, in recognition of the businessman’s major gift to the development, reported to be over £50m.
29 August 2017
