Transcript: Wealthy donors and campus speech

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Wealthy donors and campus speech’

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Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, December 12th and this is your FT News Briefing.

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Exchange traded funds have been all the rage recently. And the UK government faces a crucial vote on asylum seekers today. Plus, university presidents are facing a lot of criticism over how they’re handling antisemitism on campus. I’m Marc Filippino and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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Investors poured a record amount into high-yield bond ETFs in November. BlackRock says that these ETFs received about $11.5bn globally. Most of that came from US-listed ETFs. Last month’s total crushed the previous record that was set in April 2020. And it shows that investors are open to more risk. According to BlackRock, it wasn’t just high-yield bond ETFs that did well last month. ETFs overall globally brought in more than $127bn, which is almost double what they brought in in October.

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It’s a crucial week for the UK’s prime minister. Today, Rishi Sunak faces a pivotal vote in Parliament over his plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. It’s part of a scheme that was agreed in 2022 to deter migrants from illegally entering the UK and remove those who do. A few weeks ago, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the government’s plan was unlawful. But Sunak is moving forward with a revised version. The FT’s Anna Gross has been following the issue and she joins me now to discuss. Hey, Anna.

Anna Gross
Hi, Marc.

Marc Filippino
Anna, we’ve talked about this bill a couple of times now on the show, but what is the latest?

Anna Gross
So essentially, the government took an approach to try to make this policy workable in the face of severe opposition, including that Supreme Court ruling. And there are two prongs to that. So the Supreme Court ruling was that Rwanda could not be deemed a safe country because there was a very real risk that individuals, asylum seekers could be sent home to their country of origin, where they risked facing danger to their lives. So essentially what the government has done has created a new legally binding treaty with Rwanda that states that Rwanda cannot under any circumstances send an individual back to their country of origin. And the second thing it is doing, and this is the kind of highly controversial part, is that it’s introducing it, suggesting emergency legislation that would categorically deem Rwanda to be a safe country and also disapply parts of the domestic Human Rights Act that would potentially leave the government open to challenge.

Marc Filippino
So how are people perceiving this move?

Anna Gross
So you may think while that sounds like an incredibly strong piece of legislation and that’s what the government is arguing, it’s saying, look, we’ve never done anything like this before and is gonna make it vanishingly difficult for anyone to challenge a removal to Rwanda. But there is a large caucus of very rightwing MPs, who feel that this absolutely does not go far enough. And its main issue is that it leaves any removal open on individual grounds. So even though Rwanda is technically a safe country, an individual who is being removed to Rwanda can say, I personally am at risk if I am sent to Rwanda.

Marc Filippino
So given all the opposition that you’re talking about Anna, how confident should we be that the government can actually get this policy over the finish line?

Anna Gross
That is a million dollar question, Marc. So today there is a crucial vote. It’s the second reading of this bill. And this is where we’re gonna find out whether enough Conservative MPs vote in favour. That said, the bill is actually expected to receive enough support to pass this stage and it’s likely that MPs, instead of embarrassing Sunak at this point, are gonna try and push for amendments further down the line at later stages of the bill’s scrutiny.

Marc Filippino
Yeah, just how badly does Sunak need this win? I mean, we’re getting closer and closer to next year’s general election. Conservatives are down 20 points against Labour in opinion polls. What are the stakes for the prime minister?

Anna Gross
Not to overstate the case. I would say that the stakes are very, very high. If this bill were to be defeated today kind of reputationally, it would look very, very bad. And there are big rumours swirling around Westminster that it would probably cause a large number of MPs to hand in letters of no confidence. If enough of those letters are submitted, it could lead to a fresh leadership election, which, as you kind of hinted, that could be incredibly damaging for the party ahead of an election next year. So there’s a huge amount for Sunak to play for here in terms of holding on not only to his reputation, but his seat, his power.

Marc Filippino
Anna Gross is a political correspondent for the FT. Thanks, Anna.

Anna Gross
Thanks a lot.

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Marc Filippino
Anti-Semitism has been on the rise at US universities. The debate over how to handle it has cost one high profile university president her job. And more resignations could be coming. The FT’s Josh Chaffin has been reporting on this and he joins me now. Hi, Josh.

Joshua Chaffin
Hey, Marc.

Marc Filippino
So the University of Pennsylvania’s president, Liz Magill, resigned after coming under immense pressure. Josh, what exactly has been going on with her and with other university presidents when it comes to speech on campus?

Joshua Chaffin
In short, they had a disastrous appearance at a congressional hearing last week on the sharp rise in antisemitism on college campuses since the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel.

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Good morning. The Committee on Education and the Workforce will come to order . . . 

Joshua Chaffin
And the key moment in this congressional hearing, the three presidents were asked.

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At MIT, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate MIT’s code of conduct or rules regarding bullying and harassment? Yes or No?

Joshua Chaffin
And to the shock I think of just about everybody watching, they simply could not muster a very clear answer to that question.

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It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman.

Joshua Chaffin
They hedged. They prevaricated.

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That would be investigated as harassment if pervasive and severe.

Joshua Chaffin
And it really has created a firestorm that has gone all the way up to the White House. And there are a lot of Palestinian students or Muslim student groups that have complained about Islamophobia on campus, that this has risen alongside anti-Semitism. They have complained that a lot of the Jewish complaints in turn, are an effort to limit free speech. That they’re simply campaigning for what they believe is a just cause.

Marc Filippino
And to add another element to this: there’s the question of money and the influence of money and power on these universities when it comes to free speech and antisemitism on campus. How did donors play into this whole thing, Josh?

Joshua Chaffin
Well, the campaign to hold the presidents accountable for the rise of antisemitism or for failing to address it has been led by a group of wealthy donors, mostly Jewish, but not entirely. A couple of them are big Wall Street figures. Mark Rowan, who is one of the founders of the Apollo Group. And Bill Ackman, who is a big hedge fund manager of Pershing Square Capital Management. Bill has been incredibly public on Twitter in particular. Mark Rowan has been a little bit more behind the scenes, but has written letters that have become very public urging other donors to withhold donations because he was so unhappy about what’s happened.

Marc Filippino
Josh I can’t imagine that everyone is thrilled with this campaign from donors. What are critics saying?

Joshua Chaffin
I think there is a lot of discomfort about the idea of the wealthiest people among us getting to decide what can and can’t be said on university campuses and how they should be run because they’re able to write very large checks. I think this is a kind of an issue that has you know, it’s a long and complicated one and that the universities would like you to think that its absolutely pristine process where they receive donations and yet they make all their decisions in a kind of ivory tower that don’t have any donor influence involved. But obviously they’re out courting these enormous checks. And I think the relationship is always probably a little bit messier than they might like it to be.

Marc Filippino
Josh, as you’re following the story, what are you looking out for next?

Joshua Chaffin
I think this larger reckoning about DEI policies on university, the sense that speech is protected in some cases, but not in other cases, that this is gonna become a larger political issue. I think that Elise Stefanik, the Republican congresswoman from New York, who led the questioning on these cases, she has threatened further investigation to subpoena documents, emails, etc, from the universities. So I think she may try to make hay.

Marc Filippino
That’s the FT’s Josh Chaffin. Thanks, Josh.

Joshua Chaffin
Thank you.

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Marc Filippino
You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com for free when you click the links in our shownotes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

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