Two weeks ago, an article published in The Gazelle arguing for the need for more professors like David Cameron started a much-needed conversation about what academic diversity and ‘freedom’ looks like on our campus at NYU Abu Dhabi. The article indicated that the presence of conservative politicians like David Cameron as part of our faculty is a way to realize its values of academic diversity and ‘freedom’. It also framed this discourse under the umbrella of ‘critical inquiry’ and ‘interdisciplinary exploration’, arguing how professors like David Cameron allow us to imagine ourselves outside of a restricted echo-chamber.

Here, it is significant to understand the circumstances surrounding David Cameron’s appointment. As the article points out, the news of his appointment was announced by media outlets such as the Financial Times and The National, even before the students enrolled in the course were made aware of it. This lays bare what seems to be a significant motivation behind this move: publicity. Inviting a former prime minister of one the world’s most powerful countries and pretending that it was meant for anything other than granting our campus global visibility is not just disingenuous but also misleading.

The original article also poses the question of whether there is ‘scholar(ly)’ censorship on an institutional level, implying that there is an intentional strategy in place to keep conservative voices outside of academic discourses at NYUAD. Such a question has no place in the discussion on Cameron’s appointment, however, because David Cameron is not a scholar. He is a former Prime Minister, a previously practicing politician and not a researcher of politics/political science. While it might seem like an argument on semantics, it is an important distinction, especially in the context of an educational institution.

It is crucial to understand that David Cameron has , but his expertise is of a different nature, and is perhaps even incompatible with the educational setting. A scholar with expertise might be able to provide insights from various different points of view, but a politician would draw their conclusions from their experience, with a bias toward their political opinions. If the aim of the J-Term course was to open the stage for conservative expertise in particular, perhaps an academic on conservative politics would have contributed with far more diverse knowledge.

This principle is not exclusive to conservative politicians. If a left-leaning politician had received the position of a lecturer, the question of whether or not their political experience qualifies as academic expertise would still stand. Furthermore, reducing David Cameron to being only a conservative politician, as the article in question does, erases the circumstances and consequences of his decisions while he was still in office. The authority of a professor or any other educational instructor comes from their years of rigorous academic training and research. Cameron does not possess such qualifications. His appointment at NYUAD, however, equates his political celebrity-dom with being qualified and certified to teach, which is almost an indirect praise for his harmful decisions.

Then comes the issue of ‘academic freedom’. If inviting David Cameron to the university falls under the umbrella of academic freedom, then the question stands: freedom from whom? If his arrival to NYUAD is completely backed by the institution, with all their resources and reputation, then who is impeding Cameron’s access to such academic spaces? Students raising legitimate concerns against his appointment does not in any way represent the revocation of people’s academic freedom; it is merely an expression of critical thinking to contextualize the deeply problematic ideas which lie at the center of Cameron’s political actions while in office. It is also a practice for students in exerting their agency over the institutions’ decisions and resource allocation, especially when they have a direct impact on the students’ educational experience.

The very use of buzzwords such as academic freedom to argue for the credibility of this appointment is flawed. Within our institutional context, academic freedom has always been used to refer to the inclusion of marginalized communities in academic settings, especially when it comes to legal issues of censorship. This co-option is also not coincidental: it is the classic fantasy of conservative victimhood in academic and political spaces aimed at positing conservative ideas as under threat.

That being said, this is not the first time that NYUAD has seen such a characterization of legitimate concerns against conservative voices and professors. In April 2021, a blog published under ‘Voices of NYUAD’ framed a similar discourse around conservatism under the umbrella of ‘intellectual freedom’, another term co-opted from language used in relation to marginalized identities. Granted that The Gazelle article in question had no association to said blog, both show the ease and recklessness with which many conservative voices on campus appropriate language created and used by minoritized communities.

Keeping aside the article’s ill-conceived theorization of such issues, it also exhibits a complete indifference to the actual context in which this discourse originated. By employing language such as ‘stifling’ and ‘deplatforming’ to refer to the student backlash that resulted in his appointment, the article tries to impressionate that conservative voices on-campus are under a legitimate threat of erasure. The fact of the matter remains that these critical voices were primarily, if not fully, student-led with little to no institutional support. To frame the expression of such criticism as an effort to marginalize conservative voices on-campus is factually inaccurate at best, especially given our institutional context when progressive critical voices such as these have historically produced very little consequence, in the first place. This has been evident in several cases previously, as recently as the institution’s silence over the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian families in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

It is also incredibly ironic to use phrases such as ‘marginalized’ or ‘humanistic discourse’ to defend his appointment as professor since, during his tenure, Cameron was often condemned for using dehumanizing and crass language against migrants and refugees arriving at Europe’s borders. At an institution that values global perspectives and aims to use academic freedom as a principle to empower truly marginalized voices, the appointment of a person who mostly contributed to the stifling of such conversations goes against the founding principles of the university.

There should be a space for conservative input on all topics of social importance, but perhaps not when the source is known for being so detrimental to global discourse in general.

Cameron’s appointment is just a symptom of a larger problem that exists in educational systems all over the world, where political image and celebrity can subside academic integrity. Within the context of NYUAD, this becomes even more questionable: how can an institution reinforce their promise of a global education when they employ politicians who have had such significant global repercussions through their political decisions?