Council For Assisting Refugee Academics - History

History

The Academic Assistance Council (AAC) was initiated in April 1933 by William Beveridge. Whilst en route to Vienna he learnt of the dismissal of a number of leading professors from German universities on racial and/or political grounds and was moved to launch a ‘rescue operation’ for the increasing numbers of displaced academics. On his return to Britain Beveridge set about enlisting the support of prominent academics..

By May 22, 1933 a founding statement had been produced and it was circulated amongst British universities, politicians and philanthropists. This initial rallying call focused on the need for practical support, assistance escaping persecution and relocating in British universities, and deliberately avoided making any sort of political comment.

The council was formed of 41 men and women active in British intellectual activities. The council included J S Haldane and Frederick Gowland Hopkins, Lord Ernest Rutherford, Lord Rayleigh, William Bragg. Rutherford and A.V. Hill joined as President and vice President of the council, Beveridge one of two honorary secretaries.

In October 1933 ten thousand people attended an AAC event at the Albert Hall at which Albert Einstein spoke on the importance of Academic Freedom. In his address Einstein encouraged his audience to "resist the powers which threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedom" and spoke of our duty to "care for what is eternal and highest amongst our possessions".

In 1936 the AAC changed their name to the ‘Society for Protection of Science and Learning’ (SPSL). This change reflected the development of the understanding of the role of the organisation from assisting individual academics to the protection of academic freedom itself. Thousands of academics were helped by SPSL in the 30s and 40s. Many of these were of great distinction. Sixteen became Nobel Laureates, eighteen were knighted and over a hundred were elected as Fellows of the British Academy or the Royal Society. Ludwig Guttmann went on to found the Paralympics; Max Born was a pioneer of quantum mechanics and was one of the most prominent physicists to oppose the development of nuclear weapons; and Ernst Chain would be instrumental in the discovery of penicillin.

The SPSL’s work continued even after the Second World War had come to an end. Beveridge would later explain in his A Defence of Free Learning (1959) how "although Hitler was dead, intolerance was not" and "continued needs and the possible future crises" rendered the Society’s services as necessary as ever, in Europe and across the world.

SPSL continued to support displaced academics through the second part of the 40s and through the 50s, notably those who sought refugee from the Moaist regime in China and the Stalinist regime in the USSR. A number of scholars, writers and artists were rescued from the apartheid regime in South Africa in the 60s and 70s. Most prominent of these was human rights leader Albie Sachs who was assisted by SPSL in 1966, then again in 1988. Sachs describes the "immense moral and emotional comfort" which SPSL’s assistance provided and continues to be a supporter of the charity. SPSL’s work continued in the 70s and 80s with the assistance of academics that fled Pinochet’s Chile.

Since the 90s SPSL’s focus has shifted to the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Iran, and to troubled regions of Africa. In 1999 SPSL was renamed Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA).