Editing Oxford University Press (section)

== Controversies ==

===Tehran Book Fair controversy===
In February 1989, Iran's [[Ruhollah Khomeini|Ayatollah Khomeini]] issued a fatwa urging the execution of British author Salman Rushdie and of all involved in the publication of his novel [[Satanic Verses controversy|''The Satanic Verses'']]. Rushdie went into hiding, and an international movement began to boycott book trading with Iran. There was, therefore, outrage when, in April 1989, OUP broke the worldwide embargo and chose to attend the [[Tehran International Book Fair|Tehran Book Fair]]. OUP justified this by saying, "We deliberated about it quite deeply but felt it certainly wasn't in our interests, or Iran's as a whole, to stay away."<ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/mullahsb.jpg quoted in "Such principled publishers", an article in The Bookseller, 5 May 1989]</ref> ''[[The New York Times]]''<ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/mullahs1.jpg 'Books for the Mullahs', ''The New York Times'', 27th April 1989]</ref> and ''[[The Sunday Times]]''<ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/mullahs2.jpg Norman Lebrecht and Ian Birrell, 'Anger over Iran book fair visits', The Sunday Times, 7th May 1989]</ref> both condemned Oxford's decision.

===Malcolm vs. Oxford University 1986–1992===
In 1990, in the UK Court of Appeal, author [[Andrew Malcolm (author)|Andrew Malcolm]] won a landmark legal judgment against Oxford University (Press) for its breach of a contract to publish his philosophical text ''Making Names''. Reporting on the verdict in ''The Observer'', Laurence Marks wrote, "It is the first time in living memory that [[Grub Street]] has won such a victory over its oppressors".<ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/marks1.jpg Laurence Marks, 'A builder's dialogue that silenced OUP', The Observer, 23 December 1990]</ref> The Appeal Court judges were highly critical of Oxford's conduct of the affair and the litigation. Lord Justice Mustill declared, "The Press is one of the longest-established publishing houses in the United Kingdom, and no doubt in the world. They must have been aware from the outset that the absence of agreement on the matters in question [the book's print-run and format] was not, in the trade, regarded as preventing a formal agreement from coming into existence. Candour would, I believe, have required that this should have been made clear to the judge and ourselves, rather than a determined refusal to let the true position come to light... This is not quite all. I do not know whether an outsider studying the history of this transaction and of this litigation would feel that, in his self-financed struggle with the assembled Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford the appellant has had a fair crack of the whip. I certainly do not... Mr Charkin took the decision [to renege on the OUP editor's contract], not because he thought the book was no good - he had never seen it and the reports were favourable - but because he thought it would not sell. Let there be no mistake about it, the failure of this transaction was about money, not prestige. Nor does the course of the litigation give any reason to suppose that the Press had any interest but to resist the claim, no matter on what grounds, so long as they succeeded."<ref name="Appeal">[http://www.akmedea.com/jdgmtca.html Court of Appeal judgement and order, 18 December 1990, CHF0480/90]</ref> Lord Justice Leggatt added: "It is difficult to know what the Deputy Judge (Lightman) meant by a 'firm commitment' other than an intention to create legal relations. Nothing short of that would have had any value whatever for Mr Malcolm... To suggest that Mr Hardy intended to induce Mr Malcolm to revise the book by giving him a valueless assurance would be tantamount to an imputation of fraud... It follows that in my judgment when Mr Hardy used the expressions 'commitment' and 'a fair royalty' he did in fact mean what he said; and I venture to think that it would take a lawyer to arrive at any other conclusion. There was therefore an enforceable contract for the publication of Mr Malcolm's book... The Respondents' final statement may be thought unworthy of them."<ref name="Appeal" />

The case ended in July 1992 with a Tomlin order, a damages settlement under which the servants and agents of Oxford University are permanently barred from denigrating Malcolm or ''Making Names'', rendering it the first book in literary history to be afforded such legal protection.<ref name="Baty">[http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/167385.article Phil Baty, 'Whistleblowers', The Times Higher Education Supplement, 22 February 2002] '</ref><ref name="Baty1">[http://www.akmedea.com/2K1whsl1.html Phil Baty, 'Whistleblowers', THES article on the akmedea website] '</ref><ref name="Tomlin">{{cite web|url=http://www.akmedea.com/xA210.html|title=Malcolm v Oxford: settlement agreement 1/7/92|website=www.akmedea.com}}</ref> The case was reported to have cost Oxford over £500,000.<ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/privteye.jpg Books and Bookmen column, Private Eye, 15 January 1993]</ref>

===Closure of poetry list===
In November 1998, OUP announced the closure, on commercial grounds, of its modern poetry list. Andrew Potter, OUP's director of music, trade paperbacks and Bibles, told ''[[The Times]]'' that the list "just about breaks even. The university expects us to operate on commercial grounds, especially in this day and age."<ref name="Alberge">[http://www.akmedea.com/dedpoets.jpg Dalya Alberge, 'Anger over Dead Poets Society', The Times, 21st November 1998]</ref>  In the same article, the poet [[D. J. Enright]], who had been with OUP since 1979, said, "There was no warning. It was presented as a fait accompli. Even the poetry editor didn't know....The money involved is peanuts. It's a good list, built up over many years."<ref name="Alberge" /> In February 1999, Arts Minister [[Alan Howarth, Baron Howarth of Newport|Alan Howarth]] made a speech in Oxford in which he denounced the closure: "OUP is not merely a business. It is a department of the University of Oxford and has charitable status. It is part of a great university, which the Government supports financially and which exists to develop and transmit our intellectual culture....It is a perennial complaint by the English faculty that the barbarians are at the gate. Indeed they always are. But we don't expect the gatekeepers themselves, the custodians, to be barbarians."<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/feb/04/danglaister Dan Glaister, 'Minister steps into Oxford poetry list row', The Guardian, 4 February 1999]</ref> Oxford's professor [[Valentine Cunningham]] wrote in the ''Times Higher Education Supplement'': "Increasingly, (OUP) has behaved largely like a commercial outfit, with pound signs in its eyes and a readiness to dumb down for the sake of popularity and sales....Sacking poets not because they lose money but because they do not make enough of it: it is an allegory of a university press missing the point, mistaking its prime purpose."<ref name="Mammon">[http://www.akmedea.com/mammon.jpg "Mammon's Imprint", The Times Higher Education Supplement, 12 February 1999].</ref> In March 1999 ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'' commissioned Andrew Malcolm to write an article under the strapline "Why the present constitution of the OUP cannot work".<ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/jericho.jpg Andrew Malcom, 'Don't go to Jericho: Why the present constitution of the OUP cannot work', Times Literary Supplement, 2 April 1999]</ref> A decade later, OUP's managing director, Ivon Asquith, reflected on the public relations damage caused by the episode: "If I had foreseen the self-inflicted wound we would suffer I would not have let the proposal get as far as the Finance Committee."<ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/OUPIV478.jpg Ivon Asquith letter to Roy Foster, quoted by Foster in 'The Poetry Question', Keith Robbins (ed), ''The History of Oxford University Press'', Vol IV, OUP, 2017, p478]</ref>

===Tax-exemption controversies===
Since the 1940s, both OUP and the [[Cambridge University Press]] (CUP), had made applications to the Inland Revenue for exemption from corporate tax. The first application, by CUP in 1940, was rejected "on the ground that, since the Press was printing and publishing for the outside world and not simply for the internal use of the University, the Press's trade went beyond the purpose and objects of the University and (in terms of the Act) was not exercised in the course of the actual carrying out of a primary purpose of the University."<ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/MHB-267.jpg M.H. Black, Cambridge University Press 1584-1984, CUP, 1984,p267]</ref> Similar applications by OUP in 1944 and 1950 were also rejected by the Inland Revenue, whose officers repeatedly pointed out that the university presses were in open competition with commercial, tax-liable publishers. In November 1975, CUP's chief executive [[Geoffrey Cass]] again applied to the Inland Revenue, and a year later, CUP's tax exemption was quietly conceded.<ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/MHB-267.jpg G Bridden, letter to Geoffrey Cass, 9 November 1976]</ref><ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/MHB-283.jpg M.H. Black, Cambridge University Press 1584-1984, CUP, 1984,p282]</ref> OUP's Chief Executive George Richardson followed suit in 1977. OUP's tax exemption was granted in 1978. The decisions were not made public. The issue was only brought to public attention due to press interest in OUP following the poetry list closure controversy.<ref name="Mammon" /> In 1999, the [[Civil society campaign|campaigner]] Andrew Malcolm published his second book, ''The Remedy'', where he alleged that OUP breached its 1978 tax-exemption conditions. This was reported in a front-page article in ''[[The Oxford Times]]'', along with OUP's response.<ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/oxtimes.jpg Reg Little, 'OUP denies it has breached Charity rules', The Oxford Times, 5 November 1999]</ref>

In March 2001, after a 28-year battle with the Indian tax authorities, OUP lost its tax exemption in India. The Supreme Court ruled that OUP was not tax exempt in the subcontinent "because it does not carry out any university activities there but acts simply as a commercial publisher".<ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/oxtimes2.jpg Maggie Hartford 'A Message from India', The Oxford Times, 30 March 2001]</ref> To pay off back taxes, owed since the 1970s, OUP was obliged to sell its Mumbai headquarters building, Oxford House. ''[[The Bookseller]]'' reported that "The case has again raised questions about OUP's status in the UK".<ref>[https://www.thebookseller.com/news/2001-oup-india-forced-pay-back-tax The Bookseller Editorial team, 'OUP India forced to pay back tax', ''The Bookseller'', 1 June 2001]</ref> In 2003, Joel Rickett of ''The Bookseller'' wrote an article in ''[[The Guardian]]'' describing the resentment of commercial rivals at OUP's tax exemption. Rickett accurately predicted that the funds which would have been paid in tax were "likely to be used to confirm OUP's dominance by buying up other publishers."<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/aug/30/featuresreviews.guardianreview21 Joel Rickett, 'latest news from the world of publishing', ''The Guardian'', 30 August 2003]</ref> Between 1989 and 2018, OUP bought out over 70 rival book and journal publishers. In 2007, with the new "public benefit" requirement of the revised Charities Act, the issue was re-examined <ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/apr/17/administration.highereducation Jessica Shepherd, 'Freedom of the presses', the Guardian, 17 April 2007]</ref> with particular reference to OUP.<ref>[http://www.akmedea.com/bkslr5.jpg Tom Tivnan, 'Charities review could hit publishers', The Bookseller, 2007]</ref> In the same year, Malcolm obtained and posted the documents of OUP's applications to the Inland Revenue for tax exemption in the 1940s and 1950s (unsuccessful)<ref>[https://www.akmedea.com/1940indx.html 'CUP'S and OUP'S claims for tax-exemption, 1940-1950", Index of scans on the Akmedea website]</ref> and the 1970s (successful).<ref>[https://www.akmedea.com/75aindex.html 'CUP's and OUP's tax-exemption applications, 1975-78', Index of scans on the Akmedea website]</ref> In 2008, CUP's and OUP's privilege was attacked by rival publishers.<ref>[https://www.thebookseller.com/news/rivals-attack-oup-and-cup Philip Jones,'Rivals attack OUP and CUP', ''The Bookseller'', 24 April 2008]</ref><ref>[https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/2276814.oup-status-attacked/ Chris Koenig, 'OUP status attacked', Oxford Mail, 16 May 2008]</ref> In 2009, ''[[The Guardian]]'' invited Andrew Malcolm to write an article on the subject.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Malcolm |first1=Andrew |title=The Oxbridge presses aren't charities, but are given unfair tax breaks |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/apr/15/cambridge-univsersity-press-oxford |access-date=22 August 2024 |work=The Guardian |date=14 April 2009}}</ref>

===East African bribery scandal===
In July 2012, the UK's [[Serious Fraud Office (United Kingdom)|Serious Fraud Office]] found OUP's branches in Kenya and Tanzania guilty of bribery to obtain school bookselling contracts sponsored by the World Bank. Oxford was fined £1.9 million "in recognition of sums it received which were generated through unlawful conduct" and barred from applying for World Bank-financed projects for three years.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jul/03/oxford-university-press-fined-bribery Jeevan Vasagar, 'Oxford University Press fined £1.9m over bribery by African subsidiary firms', The Guardian, 3 July 2012]</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-07-19 |title=Reprieve for Oxford Press's regional units as World Bank lifts sanctions |url=https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/business/reprieve-for-oxford-press-s-regional-units-as-world-bank-lifts-sanctions--1338944 |access-date=2024-02-25 |website=The East African |language=en |archive-date=25 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240225170056/https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/business/reprieve-for-oxford-press-s-regional-units-as-world-bank-lifts-sanctions--1338944 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Uyghur controversy===
In December 2023, concerns were raised that OUP had published an academic paper based on genetic data taken from the [[Uyghurs|Uyghur population]] of [[Xinjiang]], a Turkic ethnic group in [[China]].<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/29/academic-paper-uyghur-genetic-data-retracted-ethical-concerns Anne Hawkins, 'Academic paper based on Uyghur genetic data retracted over ethical concerns', The Guardian, 29 December 2023]</ref> Rhys Blakely, a science correspondent for ''[[The Times]]'', reported: "The research has been published online by Oxford University Press (OUP) in a journal that receives financial support from [[Ministry of Justice (China)|China's Ministry of Justice]]. The highly unusual deal will raise fears that Oxford risks becoming entangled in [[Persecution of Uyghurs in China|human rights abuses against the Uighur community]]. It will also add to concerns over [[Chinese propaganda|China's efforts to influence UK academia]]."<ref>[https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/oxford-publish-chinese-funded-research-uighur-dna-zlz5bg0pp Rhys Blakely, 'Oxford publishes Chinese-funded research that uses Uighur DNA', The Times,4 February 2024]</ref> In February, OUP announced that it was carrying out internal investigations into two further studies, based on DNA taken from China's Xibe ethnic minority.<ref> [https://www.cherwell.org/2024/02/07/ethics-concerns-over-oxford-university-press-journal-study-based-on-uyghur-dna/ 'Ethics concerns over Oxford University Press journal study based on Uyghur DNA', Cherwell, 7 February 2024]</ref> On 17 May, [[The Times]] reported that Oxford had retracted the two studies, quoting a statement from the OUP: "Earlier this year, we were alerted to concerns regarding two papers in Forensics Sciences Research. Based on the information we received, we undertook further investigation and took the decision to retract the papers, in line with industry standard processes."<ref>Rhys Blakely, 'Oxford pulls studies over China DNA link', The Times, 17 May 2024</ref>