MCLC: Xie Yeliang fired, says Twitter (2)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Anne Henochowicz <anne at chinadigitaltimes.net>
Subject: Xie Yeliang fired, says Twitter (2)
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Here's the AP story, via SCMP.

Anne

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Source: SCMP (10/18/13):
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1334729/peking-university-expels-lib
eral-economist-xia-yeliang

Peking University expels liberal economist Xia Yeliang

An elite Chinese university has decided to expel an outspoken economist
who champions free speech and the rule of law, a move critics say
underscores the Communist Party’s intolerance for discussion of democratic
values that it believes threatens its legitimacy.

A 34-member faculty at Peking University’s School of Economics voted last
week to dismiss Professor Xia Yeliang by a 30-3 vote, with one abstention,
in a closed session from which he was excluded, Xia said on Friday after
being notified of the decision. Calls to the university rang unanswered.

“I am angry inside, but I must face it with composure,” said Xia, who will
remain employed by the university until his contract expires Jan. 31, more
than 13 years after he started teaching there.

Rumours that Xia was facing expulsion had swirled in academic circles and
on discussions on China’s popular microblogs for months, with many
commentators saying such a move would be an assault on already limited
academic freedoms in China.

Xia’s expulsion comes as China’s recently installed leadership has further
tightened controls on public discourse, arresting popular bloggers for
spreading so-called rumours and activists who have called for
anti-corruption measures. Communist Party authorities reportedly issued a
directive to some college campuses that certain topics are now barred from
class discussions, including press freedom, judicial independence and
civil society.

In August, East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai
banned Zhang Xuezhong, also an outspoken professor, from teaching any
course at the school.

Xia has been a vocal advocate for democracy in recent years. In 2008, he
helped draft Charter 08, a bold call for sweeping changes to China’s
one-party political system that landed its main champion, Liu Xiaobo, in
prison.

Xia wrote an open letter in 2009 addressed to a senior Chinese leader
criticising him for imposing tight controls on expression.

He said he was notified of his dismissal by school officials, who told him
that the faculty committee – which had earlier approved of his academic
performance – was not pleased with remarks he made against the university.
Xia, however, has generally been critical of the government’s politics and
its interference with the academic world.

Xia said the officials insisted that the dismissal was nonpolitical,
although they also told him that the support he had received in the last
several months did not do him any good.

Overseas, Xia has gained support among academia from Wellesley College in
Massachusetts, the Committee of Concerned Scientists and, according to
Xia, two foreign professors at the Shenzhen campus of Peking University.

A group of Wellesley professors had signed an open letter urging the
school to reconsider an academic partnership with Peking University, in a
high-profile case of US professors pushing a Chinese university to hold up
the principle of academic freedom at a time when educational partnerships
between the two countries are proliferating.

An open letter from the Committee of Concerned Scientists also urged
Peking University’s president to consider the institution’s ambitions of
making itself a “world-class seat of learning and research.”

“We therefore urge you to prevent a vote by your faculty that would punish
Professor Xia, one of your respected academic colleagues, for his
opinions, and deprive Peking University of his expertise,” the committee
wrote in the July 31 letter.

But in September, China’s state-run nationalist newspaper Global
Timescriticised Xia for using social media to attack Peking University and
urged the school not to yield to outside pressure.

“Only Peking University can decide whether it would keep Xia,” the Global
Times editorial read. “After all, Peking University is a venue of
teaching, not a place for political fighting.”