MCLC: NYU booting Chen Guangcheng (7)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Kevin Carrico <kjc83 at cornell.edu>
Subject: NYU booting Chen Guangcheng (7)
***********************************************************

Chen Guangcheng issued a statement on this affair today, and
unfortunately his interpretation of the incident is that he is being
forced out due to political considerations. Of course, this doesn't
necessarily mean that this is the case and 100% true, but certainly
suggests that the situation has not been handled as well as it should
have been.

See the full statement after the NYT article.

Kevin

=========================================================

Source: NYT (6/16/13)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/17/world/asia/china-dissident-says-hes-being
-forced-from-nyu.html?hp&_r=1&

China Dissident Says He’s Being Forced From N.Y.U.
By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — Chen Guangcheng, the dissident legal advocate whose escape
from house arrest to the American Embassy in Beijing last year
provoked a diplomatic crisis, said he was being forced to leave New
York University over concerns that his activism was harming the
university’s relationship with China.

In a statement released Sunday, Mr. Chen said university officials
were worried that his outspoken criticism of the Chinese government
might threaten academic cooperation. N.Y.U. recently opened a campus
in Shanghai, and a number of professors are involved in programs and
research projects here that could be harmed if they were denied
Chinese visas.

“The work of the Chinese Communists within academic circles in the
United States is far greater than what people imagine, and some
scholars have no option but to hold themselves back,” Mr. Chen said.
“Academic independence and academic freedom in the United States are
being greatly threatened by a totalitarian regime.”

The allegation that Mr. Chen was being asked to leave N.Y.U. was first
raised on Thursday by The New York Post, but until Sunday, he had
remained silent.

The university issued a statement of its own on Sunday, denying Mr.
Chen’s claims. “We are very discouraged to learn of Mr. Chen’s
statement, which contains a number of speculations about the role of
the Chinese government in N.Y.U.’s decision-making that are both false
and contradicted by the well-established facts,” John Beckman, a
university spokesman, said in the statement. He said the university
was “puzzled and saddened” by Mr. Chen’s accusations but that it would
continue to help him and his family.

The university insists that Mr. Chen’s law school fellowship was
always meant to be for one year, and those who have worked closely
with him in recent months said he understood the time limitations of a
financial arrangement that even Mr. Chen acknowledged was extremely
generous. The fellowship’s end, Mr. Beckman said, “had nothing to do
with the Chinese government — all fellowships come to an end.”

Mr. Chen said the school had given him until the end of June to vacate
the faculty apartment in Greenwich Village where he and his family
have lived since arriving in the United States in May 2012.

A self-taught lawyer who is blind, Mr. Chen, 41, was well known in
China for his legal fight against the country’s coercive
family-planning policies. After arriving in the United States, he
became something of a media sensation, giving interviews and
testifying before Congress.

His claims that university officials tried to discourage his activism
raise questions about the extent to which American academic
institutions are susceptible to pressure from a government that has
grown increasingly self-confident and assertive in its dealings with
the rest of the world.

That pressure, he said, began to reveal itself less than four months
after his escape from the heavily guarded house where he had been
confined for 18 months after his release from prison on what legal
experts say were trumped-up charges.

In the United States, many colleges have grown increasingly reliant on
the tuition from the 194,000 Chinese students who enrolled at American
universities last year, a 23 percent increase over the previous year.
A number of universities, including Johns Hopkins, Yale and Duke, have
programs or satellite campuses in China or are planning them. Mr.
Chen’s statement did not include details about how he might have been
pressed by N.Y.U., and he declined an interview request on Sunday. But
friends said he had been quietly stewing in recent months over what he
believed were the university’s efforts to stage-manage his public
activism, which included an appearance in April on Capitol Hill to
speak about the Chinese government’s persecution of relatives he left
behind.

In August, he told friends that N.Y.U. was trying to dissuade him from
traveling to Washington to meet members of Congress. As he was
returning to New York that day, two N.Y.U. interpreters who were
accompanying Mr. Chen refused to allow a reporter from Radio Free Asia
to interview him at Union Station. The reporter, Zhang Min, said in an
interview that Mr. Chen was so angry that he threatened to remain
behind in Washington.

Matt Dorf, a Washington-based media strategist who was there that day
and who worked closely with Mr. Chen after his arrival in the United
States, offered another view of the incident, saying that one of the
translators was eight months pregnant and anxious to catch the train
to New York, which the group eventually missed. Writing in an e-mail,
Mr. Dorf noted that Mr. Chen had hours earlier spoken to dozens of
reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference and he dismissed
suggestions that Mr. Chen’s ability to speak to the news media was
discouraged by N.Y.U.

Mr. Beckman, the university spokesman, said in the statement on Sunday
that N.Y.U. had provided “opportunities for Mr. Chen to pursue his
advocacy.”

Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid, a Christian group in Texas, recounted a
conversation in which Mr. Chen lamented what he perceived to be the
Chinese government’s growing influence in the United States. “He felt
a tremendous sadness knowing how academia was kowtowing to the Chinese
government,” Mr. Fu said.

But in recent days, other associates of Mr. Chen’s have questioned the
notion that N.Y.U. was forcing him to leave. Jerome A. Cohen, a law
professor who helped arrange his fellowship and who considers himself
a confidant, said the school had been exceedingly generous, providing
him with transportation, security and private lessons in law and
English. He added that Mr. Chen had at least two enviable job options,
including one at Fordham University and another at the Witherspoon
Institute, a think tank in Princeton, N.J.

“They have done more than imaginable, but I don’t know how anyone
could stay here at N.Y.U. on a continual basis,” Mr. Cohen said
Thursday. “No political refugee, not even Albert Einstein, has
received better treatment.”

====================================================

PS- Chen's statement can be read in full on the ChinaAid website.

http://www.chinaaid.org/2013/06/blind-legal-activist-chen-guangcheng.html

Chen Guangcheng's Statement:

Recently, there have been some reports that my family and I are
leaving New York University, and friends both in China and elsewhere
abroad are very concerned about this. So I want to especially thank my
friends. At the same time, I want to explain a few things with regard
to what’s happened:

1. It is true that New York University has asked us to leave before
the end of June.

2. In fact, as early as last August and September, the Chinese
Communists had already begun to apply great, unrelenting pressure on
New York University, so much so that after we had been in the United
States just three to four months, NYU was already starting to discuss
our departure with us.

3. The work of the Chinese Communists within academic circles in the
United States is far greater than what people imagine, and some
scholars have no option but to hold themselves back. Academic
independence and academic freedom in the United States are being
greatly threatened by a totalitarian regime.

4. I’m very grateful to NYU for its help when my family was in a
difficult period and for its good support of us when we first arrived
in the United States. We thank Professor Cohen and other friends for
trying their best to help us. This assistance has allowed us to have a
smooth transition to the United States. For this, we have always
wanted to thank the president of NYU in person. Regrettably, to date,
we still have not had the chance to meet him. Although NYU has
arranged many of our activities, to date, it has not arranged a
meeting for us with the president. Therefore, I can only show my
gratitude to him in this way.

5. China’s Communist rulers hope to use these means to disturb our
normal life, and even want to make me so busy trying to earn a living
that I don’t have time for human rights advocacy, but this is not
going to happen. Whether it was the dangers I faced in China or the
current momentary difficulties we face, I will never bow my head to
evil or to lies. I will always do everything I can for my compatriots
back in China who still are not free and who are now being oppressed.

Thank you!

Chen Guangcheng