Criticism
In the Telegraph, Malcolm Grant was criticised for allegedly downplaying Islamist radicalisation and extremism on the UCL campus. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – who attempted to explode a bomb on a flight to Detroit – was the president of the UCL Islamic Society from 2005-08. He was the fourth president of an official Islamic society at a London university to face terrorist charges in three years. In response to the criticisms, Malcolm Grant stated that he had ordered a review into the issue. He also denied that there was a problem with Islamic extremism at UCL, and accused some Telegraph writers of "Islamophobia". Consequently, the CSC issued a press briefing listing a number of Islamist extremists who had recently spoken on the UCL campus after being officially invited by UCL's Islamic groups. Ruth Dudley Edwards criticised Grant's response, writing: "Rather than producing mealy-mouthed defensive statements... Provost Grant should seriously reconsider his position." On the other hand, Professor John Sutherland, writing in the Guardian, defended the university's response of constructive engagement, which recommended "debate with extremists" and the promotion of an Islamic Awareness Week: "My own, partisan, view is that UCL's openness is morally justified.... But there are clear risks".
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“... criticism ... makes very little dent upon me, unless I think there is some real justification and something should be done.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“It is the will of God that we must have critics, and missionaries, and Congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the burden. Meantime, I seem to have been drifting into criticism myself. But that is nothing. At the worst, criticism is nothing more than a crime, and I am not unused to that.”
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