Cambridge university college sacks academic over links to far-right extremists

A University of Cambridge college has sacked a research fellow after some of his activities and connections linked him to far-right extremists.

St Edmund’s College has terminated Noah Carl’s post held after hundreds of academics and students called for his appointment to the Toby Jackman Newton Trust research fellowship to be investigated.

More than 1,000 people signed an open letter accusing Dr Carl of producing “racist pseudoscience”.

Dr Carl became a controversial figure after he spoke at a conference, the London Conference on Intelligence, where eugenics was allegedly debated and published a paper arguing stereotypes about the criminality of certain immigrant groups in the UK are “reasonably accurate”.

Matthew Bullock, the master of St Edmund’s, said: “There was a serious risk that Dr Carl’s appointment could lead, directly or indirectly, to the college being used as a platform to promote views that could incite racial or religious hatred, and bring the college into disrepute.”

Mr Bullock apologised “unreservedly” to students for the offence caused by the appointment, adding that Dr Carl’s work was “problematic”.

“We appointed Dr Carl based on his academic achievements at the University of Oxford, and on the commendations which supported his application.

“It is regrettable that such an appointment has been compromised by Dr Carl’s other activities, of which we were completely unaware when electing him to the fellowship,” he added.

But some academics have rushed to Dr Carl’s defence and accused the college of failing to defend freedom of speech. Matthew Goodwin, a politics professor at the University of Kent, tweeted: “Academic freedom is fine so long as you do not work on anything ‘problematic’.”

The move comes after controversial academic Jordan Peterson had his offer of a visiting fellowship rescinded by the University of Cambridge after he was pictured with a man wearing a T-shirt with the slogan, “I’m a Proud Islamaphobe” [sic].

The London Conference on Intelligence has been staged on at least three occasions at University College London (UCL) between 2014 and 2017, with the university later denouncing the gathering and claiming it had taken place on campus without its approval or knowledge.

Speakers at the fringe event discussed controversial topics surrounding human intelligence and the conference was subject to claims it gave a platform for the espousal of eugenics.

Among those known to have attended was Richard Lynn, a psychologist whose belief in racial differences in intelligence has seen him accused of promoting “scientific racism” and Gerhard Meisenberg, editor of the journal Mankind Quarterly, which has been described by some as a “white supremacist” publication.

Dr Carl spoke at the event on at least one occasion, although the exact content of his presentation is unknown.

The researcher has previously dismissed claims he is a “pseudoscientist”, insisting the London Conference on Intelligence had been “widely mischaracterised”.