Prestigious academic institution under fire again: Lecturer previously belonged to a movement now defined as a terrorist organization
Farah Ahmed, who previously admitted to being a member of the Islamist organization, was appointed last year as a lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Education in Cambridge. The exposure joins a series of affairs that raise criticism of the university and its recruitment policy.
A new storm is hitting the prestigious University of Cambridge: the elite British institution has recruited an academic who previously supported an organization now defined as a terrorist organization. Farah Ahmed, who was previously a member of the radical organization "Hizb ut-Tahrir", was appointed last year to the position of lecturer and researcher at the university's Faculty of Education, as reported by the British newspaper The Telegraph.
The latest discovery is expected to put heavy pressure on Cambridge and the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Deborah Prentice, regarding the institution's recruitment policy. Ahmed, who is currently responsible for postgraduate research and teaching undergraduate students, previously admitted that she was a member of "Hizb ut-Tahrir" — an international political organization that has set itself the long-term goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate. Although she claimed in 2010 that she left the organization because she did not agree with all its positions, the organization itself was outlawed in the UK in 2024 due to its alleged support for Hamas.
According to the report, which was originally based on an exposure by The Spectator magazine, Ahmed previously published a pamphlet on behalf of the organization in which she claimed that "Western education poses a threat to our beliefs and values" as a Muslim community. It was also claimed that she attacked British schools that teach that polygamy or child marriage are discrimination against women, and called democracy a "corrupt tradition". Even after her appointment at Cambridge, Ahmed helped organize conferences that called to "recognize the role of science as part of a colonial project" and to move towards teacher development based on Islamic foundations.
The exposure comes at a particularly problematic time for Prof. Prentice, who is currently dealing with a series of scandals. Just last week, Jason Arday, a professor of sociology who worked in the same faculty as Ahmed, resigned following The Telegraph's exposure of widespread plagiarism in his doctoral thesis, actions he excused by his autism which caused him, according to him, to "absorb information through imitation". The university was heavily criticized for lowering its academic standards in order to recruit him for reasons of diversity and inclusion.
In addition, an employment tribunal ruled this week that Prof. Prentice ignored and "silenced" complaints from a whistleblower in a separate bullying case at the university. This conduct, alongside the recruitment of controversial academics, is now raising calls in the UK for a re-examination of her performance and her continued path at the top of the prestigious institution.
