The story of how Kingston University in London has appropriated the Middlesex philosophy department is here. This is amazing news. Good on you, Kingston!
This act of goodwill actually makes Middlesex look even more inane. Kingston has single-handedly re-asserted the importance of philosophy and philosophy departments, it has shown that universities willing to drop their program are foolish and incapable of appreciating what they have. So, now Middlesex is not just the university that is being boycotted by academe writ large; the university who has sacrificed its good name and status as a respectable institution of higher education; it is now the university that has freely given over its most effective program to another local university. And, perhaps most importantly, it is the university that has not taken in a refugee staff: it is the ex-university that has expelled its own.
