Why a Saudi Prince’s Visit to Harvard and MIT Drew Protests

On a Friday in March, members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab were told that they would have to pass through metal detectors to enter their building the following day, but they weren’t told why. As it turned out, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, was to visit Cambridge, Mass., making stops at both MIT and Harvard University.

Three weeks later the conversation about the prince’s Cambridge tour is still alive at MIT. Bin Salman’s campus stops never prompted a full-blown uproar — about 30 to 40 people protested on the eve of the visit — but they have provoked debate about the universities’ commitment to transparency and their willingness to court money that may come with moral strings attached.

On Tuesday about 30 people attended a panel discussion that was part of MIT’s “day of action,” an event organized by students, faculty members, and administrators. Earlier this month the student newspaper, The Tech, published an editorial reproaching the university’s administration for “demonstrating that it is open to building relationships that empower war criminals, as long as it can expand its global influence in the meantime,” a reference to Saudi involvement in the Yemen war. Two weeks ago the Cambridge City Council passed a resolution expressing “disappointment” in how the two universities had handled the prince’s visit.

MIT’s president, L. Rafael Reif, responded to the editorial last week in a letter to the paper. He wrote that Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, had made positive contributions to the university by funding renewable-energy research and a fellowship for female Ph.D. candidates. He said he favored a strategy of “engaging with the world,” but acknowledged that engagement can mean working with “parties whose values and actions in other areas we reject.” In those cases, he said, “we seek to work out a carefully focused relationship.”

But critics see any relationship as an endorsement of the Saudi royal family and its policies. Bin Salman’s visit came at a time of heightened scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s role in the war in Yemen. The war has left many thousands dead, and Saudi Arabia has been accused of conducting air strikes on civilian targets. Though the prince is often called a reformer and has been credited with progressive new policies, like allowing women to drive, he also reportedly ordered the arrest of dozens of dissidents and prominent clerics.

The New York Times reported that his three-week trip to the United States was part of an effort to rebrand Saudi Arabia. It included a stop at the White House, tours of technology companies in Silicon Valley, and meetings with high-profile Americans like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates.

A ‘Polarizing’ Monarchy

Bin Salman visited MIT to attend a forum on Saudi Arabia along with government officials, businesspeople, and academics, including Reif. The prince requested a visit to Harvard as well, according to a Harvard spokeswoman. While at Harvard, bin Salman met with Alan M. Garber, the provost; Mark C. Elliott, the vice provost for international affairs; some faculty members; and the presidents of several other Boston-area universities to discuss “innovation and change in higher education.”

But it was the MIT visit that drew more attention. In a news release published a day after the prince’s visit, MIT said he had attended a signing ceremony that finalized “research and education collaborations.”

At the event, Reif stressed the importance of working across nations and institutions, according to the release. “When we are willing to work together, we can always find opportunities to make each other better,” he said.

Critics of bin Salman’s trip to Cambridge were less optimistic. To Yarden Katz, a fellow at Harvard Medical School who earned his Ph.D. at MIT, the visit was the latest symptom of a bigger problem: Influence at universities can be bought by shady companies and governments.

Katz wrote an op-ed in The Guardian with a colleague, Griffin Peterson, about “the growth of unaccountable university partnerships.” He said he was surprised by the traction the issue had gained, most notably the editorial in The Tech. The interest in the Saudi visit, he said, is connected to growing skepticism of technology companies.

“If we weren’t in the beginning of this critical technology moment, I don’t think The Tech would have written that editorial,” he said. “Now it’s obvious the Saudis are another problematic partner among many.”

Jonathan A. King, an emeritus biology professor at MIT, said the interest in bin Salman’s visit had more to do with the fact that it was the Saudis visiting. King is a member of Massachusetts Peace Action, the activist group that organized the protest.

“The Saudi monarchy is polarizing,” he said. “You don’t usually see them on university campuses in the United States.”

He said the lack of transparency around the meeting “violates the spirit of a research university.”

That’s what rubbed Quinton Zondervan the wrong way as well. He is an MIT graduate and the Cambridge city councilor who sponsored the city’s resolution against the visit.

“If he came to campus to give a speech and do a Q&A, that would be great because then people could ask tough questions,” Zondervan said. “But this was all behind the scenes.”

The City Council’s resolution, he said, was meant to make more people aware of the visit and the universities’ partnerships with Saudi Arabia.

“I definitely felt motivated to shed some light on it,” Zondervan said. “To help people understand what’s going on here.”

Nell Gluckman writes about faculty issues and other topics in higher education. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email her at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.