Following the recent issues regarding students with Israeli passports, Dubai offers UConn a deal with a catch

The University of Connecticut has put the brakes on its plan to open an undergraduate campus in the United Arab Emirate of Dubai.

Dubai has offered UConn what appears to be an unbeatable deal. In an effort to make itself a regional education center, Dubai would underwrite all costs of a four-year campus and faculty. UConn President Philip E. Austin says there would be no cost to Connecticut taxpayers.The Dubai campus is a natural extension of UConn’s overseas academic collaborations from Armenia to Brazil. UConn’s undergraduate venture would be the first of its kind for an American university. Harvard, with a post-graduate medical training program, is the only other American university that has entered an educational partnership with Dubai. Harvard also has a policy banning discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, age or sexual orientation. This policy applies to its work in Dubai, where it has been fully accepted, according to Dr. Robert L. Thurer, chief academic officer of Harvard Medical School Dubai Center. As progressive as Dubai is in allowing Western dress for women and religious freedom, it does not recognize the state of Israel and boycotts products made in Israel. It denies entry to holders of Israeli passports. There are Israelis on UConn’s faculty. UConn has slowed talks on opening a Dubai campus until it is certain that the arrangement does not violate its anti discrimination policy. Given Dubai’s acceptance of Harvard’s anti discrimination policy, that should not prove a major obstacle.

Dubai’s interest in opening itself to Western businesses and universities should be encouraged. A dynamic and relatively open Muslim country, it offers a balance to the extremism of the Taliban and the intolerant, religious fundamentalism enforced in Saudi Arabia. Source