Members of the Cornell community gathered in Ives Hall last month to learn more about Cornell University’s involvement with the People’s Republic of China.
The event was designed to shed light on the university’s relationship with Chinese institutions, as well as its implications for academic freedom. Cornell University has forged close partnerships with Chinese universities, as demonstrated by the recent dual-degree program between the Nolan School of Hotel Administration and Peking University. The university also plans to have two physical hubs in Beijing and Hong Kong.
The teach-in featured five participants, including history professor Peidong Sun, international & comparative labor professor Eli Friedman, and Human Rights Watch senior researcher Yaqiu Wang. It was sponsored by a number of organizations, including the Cornell Political Union, Cornell Society for the Promotion of East Asian Liberty, and the American Association of University Professors.
Professor Friedman focused on American academic engagement with China. Friedman said that though he views engagement with Chinese institutions is imperative, the university should focus on how these relationships will be shaped and to what end. In the broader American context, Friedman remarked that American universities have collaborated more with Chinese institutions than those of any other country, as well as receiving fundraising from Chinese corporations.
Friedman focused on the previous partnership between the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Friedman said he was optimistic in the early 2010’s, because of the more liberal academic environment on the mainland. However, he believes that has since changed, as several top universities removed their commitments to “freedom of thought” from their charters in 2019.
“It is increasingly clear that Cornell is facing a legitimacy problem with regard to academic freedom,” Friedman said. He recounted his proposal as chair of the Ethics of Engagement Committee that Cornell’s China Center publicly declare that the university would not engage in censorship and that its overseas operations would be governed by local laws. In the event a presentation is asked to be modified by local officials, Friedman noted that the committee would review the request and transparently make a decision. The Cornell administration rejected his proposal and subsequently removed him as committee chair, Friedman said.
During her remarks, Professor Sun focused on academic freedom in China, specifically how state censorship impacts the use of language, publication, and authorship. According to Sun, “Censorship prevents language from efficiently conveying information and disrupts public discourse.” She observed that the number of politically sensitive words has risen in China and this has required academic writing to become “unnecessarily complicated.”
Wang explored the effects of self-censorship among overseas Chinese students, delving into why they cannot enjoy full academic freedom even on a U.S. college campus. She also discussed why some students express support for the Chinese government’s policies, as demonstrated by this March’s walk-out by students during an event for Cornell’s Master in Public Administration program. Wang said, “Overseas Chinese students… still rely on information from China’s heavily censored Internet, especially WeChat.” In this context, he believes that processing contrary narratives would require “an innate curiosity, constant reading of uncensored information, and self-reflective thinking, none of which are encouraged in China.”
Immediately after the event, Professor Bensel provided an exclusive interview to the Cornell Review.
“Cornell has a statement of academic freedom. I’ve asked both the President and the Vice Provost for International Affairs repeatedly how that applies if at all to the global hubs system including the People’s Republic and I have not been able to get a straight answer. I think we need a straight answer,” Bensel said.
Bensel said that he thinks “Cornell has mercenary, monetary stakes in the programs abroad. Not only in the People’s Republic. The relationship between the hotel school, Saudi Arabia, those kinds of relationships are purely mercenary.”
“They’re purely based on money. There is no oversight. Those are called commercial agreements and Cornell doesn’t even monitor them. They don’t even know what they are.”
“It is the tip of the iceberg but there are other parts of the iceberg that you cannot see that Cornell does not report. I think it’s money,” he added.
“It is true that Cornell is not going to be an agent of major change in China. I worry about change in China. But separate from that, I worry about what it does to us as a college and university community to make the kinds of ethical compromises, moral compromises, with academic freedom.”
On free speech, Bensel said, “I’m a free speech guy. I’m not very sympathetic to any kind of restriction.”
“Most of the constraints we feel on campus are not related to China. Take the form of social pressure, social conformity. That’s harder to work with. There are norms. In order to be civil, people should obey some of them. But even when people don’t want to obey those norms and they’re not violent and disruptive, I think they should go ahead. I’m an absolute guy, kind of radical on free speech.”
Watch the full event below:
Editorial Note: The Cornell Review was one of the student organizations that sponsored this event.
Joe Silverstein, Samuel Kim, and Cullen O’Hara contributed to this story.
