MCLC: academic freedom

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: rowena he <rowenahe at gmail.com>
Subject: academic freedom
******************************************************

Source: 
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-06/china-halts-u-s-academic-freedo
m-at-classroom-door-for-colleges.html

China Halts U.S. Academic Freedom at Classroom Door for Colleges
By Oliver Staley and Daniel Golden

Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) -- In the 25 years Johns Hopkins University and
Nanjing University have run a joint campus in China, it¹s never
published an academic journal. When American student Brendon Stewart
tried last year, he found out why.

Intended to showcase the best work by Chinese and American students
and faculty to a far-flung audience, Stewart¹s journal broke the
Hopkins-Nanjing Center¹s rules that confine academic freedom to the
classroom. Administrators prevented the journal from circulating
outside campus, and a student was pressured to withdraw an article
about Chinese protest movements. About 75 copies sat in a box in
Stewart¹s dorm room for a year.

³You think you¹re going to a place that has academic freedom, and
maybe in theory you do, but in reality you don¹t,² said Stewart, 27,
who earned a master¹s degree in international studies this year from
Hopkins-Nanjing and now works for an accounting firm in Beijing. ³The
place is run by Chinese administrators, and I don¹t think the U.S.
side had a lot of bargaining power to protect the interests of its
students. At the end of the day, it¹s a campus on Chinese soil.²

The muzzling of Stewart¹s journal exposes the compromises to academic
freedom that some American universities make in China. While
professors and students openly discuss sensitive subjects such as the
Tibetan independence movement or the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests on
the Hopkins-Nanjing campus, they can¹t do so in the surrounding
community. Even on-campus protections only cover class discussions,
not activities typical of U.S. campuses, such as showing documentary
films in a student lounge.

Price for Expansion

The Hopkins-Nanjing Center is a model for a growing number of U.S.
colleges, including Duke University and New York University, which are
establishing footholds in China. As the newcomers take advantage of
multimillion-dollar subsidies from China, they may jeopardize the
intellectual give-and-take that characterizes American higher
education, said June Teufel Dreyer, a University of Miami political
science professor and China specialist.

³In their enthusiasm to be part of the Chinese educational picture,
American universities may be ceding some measure of their independence
to avoid offending the government,² Dreyer said.

The Hopkins-Nanjing Center has achieved its goal of being a ³safe
place² where Chinese and American students can debate controversial
aspects of both societies, Johns Hopkins President Ronald Daniels said
in a telephone interview.

³Is it what we would desire for every project, every center we¹re
involved in?² Daniels asked. ³The answer is no. We would hope over
time that the scope for discussion can extend beyond the center.²

Academic Freedom

Academic freedom ³gives both students and faculty the right to express
their views -- in speech, writing and through electronic
communication, both on and off campus -- without fear of sanction,²
Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University
Professors, wrote in a 2010 essay.

Limits on academic freedom are one reason Stanford University and
Columbia University haven¹t opened campuses in China. Columbia has a
study center in Beijing, while Stanford plans to open one on the
campus of Peking University next year. Such centers, which provide
offices for visiting professors and host lectures and fundraisers, are
easily exited, Columbia President Lee Bollinger said.

³The one thing we have to do is maintain our academic integrity, our
academic independence,² Bollinger said. ³There are too many examples
of a strict and stern control that lead you to think that this is kind
of an explosive mix.²

No Guarantee

Stanford President John Hennessy said its center has no protection of
academic freedom and other schools¹ agreements don¹t guarantee rights
taken for granted in the U.S.

³Even the ones you get are so scripted as to not be freedom as we
imagine it in this country,² Hennessy said.

At least a dozen private and public U.S. colleges either have or are
planning campuses in China. They are part of American colleges¹
increasing and lucrative involvement with China. About 57,000 Chinese
undergraduates, most paying full tuition, attended U.S. colleges in
2010-2011, six times as many as in 2005-06. A Chinese government
affiliate has contributed millions of dollars to establish Confucius
Institutes for Chinese language and culture on 75 American campuses.

China¹s government encourages cooperation between Chinese and foreign
universities. China is seeking ³more substantive, productive and
enduring partnerships,² Liu Yanshen, a Ministry of Education official,
said in an October speech in New York.

NYU to Shanghai

NYU plans to open a liberal arts campus in 2013 in Shanghai, where the
municipal government, along with tuition and philanthropy, will cover
the expense, President John Sexton said in an interview.

Students and faculty at the new campus shouldn¹t assume they can
criticize government leaders or policies without repercussions, Sexton
said in his office in Manhattan¹s Washington Square.

³I have no trouble distinguishing between rights of academic freedom
and rights of political expression,² he said. ³These are two different
things.²

The city of Kunshan, 40 miles west of Shanghai, is spending an
estimated $260 million to build a new university jointly run by Duke
and Wuhan University. Duke¹s share of planning and operating expenses
is expected to be $43 million over six years.

Duke Conversations

Duke administrators have had ³pretty good conversations with people at
Hopkins² and would be comfortable drawing similar distinctions between
³intra-campus discussion and what you do at large,² President Richard
Brodhead said.

³We know China does not observe the same norms of First Amendment
rights that we¹re used to in this country,² Brodhead said in his
office in Durham, North Carolina. ³If you want to engage in China, you
have to acknowledge that fact.²

U.S. universities also encounter challenges to academic freedom in the
Middle East. The University of Connecticut scrapped plans in 2007 to
expand to Dubai amid criticism of the Emirate¹s Israel policies. NYU
last year opened an Abu Dhabi campus, which enjoys the same academic
freedom as the Washington Square campus, according to the university¹s
web site.

The Hopkins-Nanjing Center occupies a 10-story tower of brick and
glass within a gated compound on the northwest corner of the Nanjing
University campus. ³They probably have the strictest security on
campus,² said Man Fang, 24, a Nanjing University student.

The center, which grants one-year certificates and two-year master¹s
degrees, has 164 students. Half of them are Chinese, and most of the
rest are American. Chinese students take courses in English and
international students in Mandarin.

Understanding

U.S. administrators try to anticipate the needs of their Chinese
counterparts. ³If you want understanding, you don¹t constantly
antagonize people,² said Carolyn Townsley, director of the center¹s
Washington support office.

Tuition covers most of the center¹s cost, President Daniels said. The
center charges international students $22,000 for a certificate and
$36,000 a year for a master¹s, plus housing. Nanjing University paid
two-thirds of a $25 million-plus physical expansion completed in
August 2006, said Robert Daly, co-director from 2001-2007.

The Hopkins-Nanjing Center opened in 1986 as the first campus jointly
run by U.S. and Chinese universities. Hopkins insisted the center
should safeguard academic freedom in the classroom, with a library
giving students access to the same materials as in the U.S., said
George Packard, former dean of Hopkins¹ School of Advanced
International Studies in Washington, who helped negotiate the deal.

Campus as Sanctuary

The most recent written version of the agreement, from 2005,
formalizes the concept of the campus as a sanctuary:

³Within the HNC, no student, faculty member, research fellow,
administrator, or visitor will be restricted in formal or casual
speech, writing, access to research materials, or selection of
research, lecture, or presentation topics.²

This approach precluded publications circulating outside the center,
Daly said. ³To have a voice reflective of the center would be to push
the freedoms outside,² he said.

While necessary to establish the center, the restrictions on speech
outside the classroom were ³unreasonable, and we don¹t believe in
them,² Packard said.

Jason Patent, the American co-director, tells American students at an
orientation briefing that they can¹t expect the same levels of freedom
as in the U.S., he said in an interview.

³OThe U.S. Constitution does not follow you here,¹² he reminds them.

American students at Hopkins-Nanjing said they discuss sensitive
subjects in class -- and recognize the hazards of doing so outside it.
³It¹s been very interesting to engage with the professors on topics
that are somewhat taboo in China,² said Daniel Stein, 26, from New
York.

OProtected Space¹

Brendon Stewart learned how the ³protected space² agreement works in
practice. A native of Albuquerque, New Mexico, he enrolled at
Hopkins-Nanjing after a stint in the Peace Corps in Lanzhou, China.

Stewart began his journal late in 2009 to inject some vitality into a
torpid campus, he said. The bilingual journal would show off the
center¹s finest scholarship in Chinese history and politics and would
be sent to donors and prospective students.

³If you want to start a journal at an American university, you just
start it,² Stewart said. ³We thought we were adding value. We were
like, OHow does this not exist?¹²

Encouraged by Jan Kiely, then American co-director of the center,
Stewart began soliciting articles from students and faculty, aiming
for equal Chinese and U.S. representation. ³I didn¹t foresee the way
it was to become a problem,² Kiely said.

No Center Funds

Still, he and Chinese administrators rejected Stewart¹s request for
3,000 yuan ($470) to print the journal. The center rarely funds
student projects, Kiely said. On Kiely¹s advice, Stewart asked HNC
alumni for donations, and he received an anonymous gift from an
American alumnus in China.

Shortly before the journal was to be published, Mitchell Lazerus, an
American student, posted a one-page essay denouncing the Communist
party on a white board outside the cafeteria. The essay soured the
atmosphere at the center, Stewart said. Lazerus did not respond to
e-mails.

Days later, a Chinese professor withdrew an article he had submitted
about the financial crisis.

Stewart then heard a rumor that all the Chinese students with articles
in the journal wanted them removed because they were afraid it would
reflect Lazerus¹s political views. To reassure them, Stewart showed
them the galleys.

Powers That Be

³The word came back that they were all very sorry because they saw how
hard we worked, but the powers that be wouldn¹t allow them to
participate,² said Stewart.

Most of the Chinese students involved in editing and layout asked
Stewart to remove their names. He complied.

Chinese authorities at Hopkins-Nanjing were worried that a
student-produced journal would draw unwanted attention to the center¹s
special protected status, Kiely said. Huang Chengfeng, the Chinese
co-director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, declined an interview
request.

One Chinese student author said that a dean from Nanjing University
unaffiliated with the Hopkins-Nanjing Center prevailed on him to
withdraw his article, which argued that the Communist regime gains
from grassroots protests because they root out local corruption
without challenging the party¹s power.

The Chinese dean suggested that removing the article would be in the
student¹s best interest. ³I did not expect that it would turn out to
be such a mess,² said the student, who asked that his name not be used
because he is concerned about repercussions from Chinese officials. ³I
didn¹t expect such a rigid monitoring over students¹ behavior.²

OA Very Difficult Position¹

Kiely held a forum to clear the air. He told students academic freedom
³doesn¹t include being able to put Chinese students and professors in
a very difficult position in their own country,² he said.

Administrators told Stewart that he could publish his journal if he
submitted it for their review and limited circulation to students and
center personnel, he said. They removed the word ³center² from the
journal¹s title so that it didn¹t appear to be an official
publication, he said.

Many of the 300 printed copies were never distributed, Stewart said.
³I learned some incredible lessons about how the system works,² he
said. ³I got a lot more cynical.²

The journal ³wasn¹t part of our academic program,² Kiely said. ³It was
intellectual activity and carried out in that spirit, but it was not
part of the program, and that¹s where we drew the line.²

Stewart¹s journal was placed in the center¹s library, Hopkins
President Daniels said. The on-campus access ³respects the boundaries
that we have to operate in,² he said.

Conflicted Values

The squelching was the ³most obvious incident² where the center¹s
stated values conflicted with reality, said Adam Webb, a professor of
international politics at Hopkins-Nanjing and a contributor to the
journal.

Administrators also intervened on the eve of the 20th anniversary of
Tiananmen Square in 2009, when students discussed the uprisings in an
online Google group. One American student, who asked not to be named,
offered to screen a 1995 Chinese- language documentary about the
protests, ³The Gate of Heavenly Peace,² which he had saved on his
laptop.

³Everyone was debating about this and I said, OHow about we set up a
time to watch the documentary and have a discussion?¹² the student
said.

Film Interrupted

About a dozen American and Chinese students and their Chinese guests
gathered one Saturday evening in the lounge on the center¹s second
floor. Once the film began, an American administrator said they
couldn¹t watch it there. They finished their viewing in the
organizer¹s dorm room.

Chinese police monitoring the Internet conversation had alerted the
center¹s Chinese administrators, who contacted their American
counterparts, Kiely said.

The Chinese reaction was ³heavy handed,² he said. ³Something like that
of course makes them very nervous.²

It was ³inappropriate² to show a video banned in China to an audience
that included Chinese visitors unaffiliated with the center, said
Felisa Neuringer Klubes, spokeswoman for Hopkins¹ School of Advanced
International Studies. The video is available to faculty, staff and
students in the library, she said.

China mandates political-study courses in such topics as the ideology
of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, Daly said. While Hopkins-Nanjing was
exempted from this requirement, other joint campuses may have to
grapple with it, he said.

Studying Mao

During early discussions with NYU, Chinese officials mentioned a
requirement for a Chinese study course, said May Lee, NYU¹s associate
vice chancellor for Asia. Two British schools fulfill that mandate at
their China campuses with standard history courses, she said. NYU
would not teach anything it objected to, Sexton said.

Neither Duke nor NYU has an agreement specifying what kinds of speech
will be permitted at their campuses.

³We haven¹t negotiated in advance about such things,² Duke President
Brodhead said. ³We¹ve made it clear that we have values and principles
and if it becomes untenable, we have an exit clause.²

The ministry of education assured Sexton that the university can
manage its academic program as it sees fit, he said. ³If it gets to a
point where we feel that our core and essence is being compromised, we
can leave without having jeopardized² the university¹s finances or
reputation.

Earlier NYU effort

Restrictions on academic freedom helped trip up a prior NYU
collaboration in China. In 2006, officials at Shanghai Jiao Tong
University¹s law school asked NYU law professor Jerome A. Cohen to
start a joint law center. Cohen has studied China since the 1960s and
met leaders such as Zhou Enlai and Deng. After retiring from law
practice, he began pushing to reform China¹s criminal justice system.

³I may cause you nothing but trouble,² Cohen told Jiao Tong administrators.

They reassured Cohen of their support. Then the Jiao Tong
administrator who had pushed for the center died, and party
representatives began to criticize the program, Cohen said.

³It became clear that things would go better if I resigned as head of
the NYU side,² he said. ³I didn¹t step down because it was a matter of
principle.²

The three-year agreement between the two universities wasn¹t renewed.
³We just let it drop,² Cohen said.

The Jiao Tong program was ³fairly small,² said NYU spokesman John
Beckman. At NYU¹s study-abroad site in Shanghai, professors haven¹t
had issues with academic freedom, he said.

Cohen again encountered China¹s limits on free speech when Tsinghua
University School of Law in Beijing and the American Bar Association¹s
China office celebrated his 80th birthday with a May 2010 conference
on the role of the criminal defense lawyer in China.

Removed From Panel

At Cohen¹s urging, the ABA invited Mo Shaoping, a human rights lawyer
whose clients have included Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and
other dissidents, as a speaker.

The day before the event, Mo was dropped from the panel, presumably by
Communist party officials at the upper levels of the university, Cohen
said. After Cohen threatened to cancel the conference, he and an ABA
representative were allowed to tell the audience about Mo¹s removal
and to criticize the decision.

³I didn¹t want to be associated with the denial of free speech to a
friend,² Cohen said.

The curbing of Brendon Stewart¹s free speech rights didn¹t stop him
from trying again. Following the turmoil about the journal, the
Hopkins-Nanjing Center clarified its rules on extracurricular
activities in 2010-11. From now on, students would need the
administration¹s approval for events and clubs.

Even with his prior ordeal, Stewart applied through official channels
to publish another journal.

His application was rejected.

--With assistance from Daryl Loo in Beijing. Editors: Jonathan
Kaufman, Kevin Miller

To contact the reporters on this story: Oliver Staley in New York at
ostaley at bloomberg.net; Dan Golden in Boston at dlgolden at bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonathan Kaufman at
jkaufman17 at bloomberg.net