Report Details the Worker Complaints That Blurred N.Y.U.’s Emirates Vision

By Jim Dwyer. Like other Persian Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates imports much of its labor force from Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines. And it imports prestige from liberal Western institutions like universities and museums.
Among them is New York University, which has settled into a campus built for it — free, thanks to capital from the Emirates and the cheap labor of migrant workers — on an island called Saadiyat, which is being developed by the Emirates as a cultural center and a temple to lavish, luxe, yacht-borne life. More...