3 thoughts on "Faculty Senate – February 24, 2021"

1. I want to express my concern about the proposed joint degree between Cornell and PKU in China. I have been gathering information about PKU’s violations of academic freedom, and I would ask my colleagues whether Cornell’s decision to proceed with this program would serve as an implicit acceptance of these violations as normalized practice, however lucrative the venture might be for the Hotel School. The proposal cites the precedent of the joint program already in place between the Johnson School and Tsinghua University, but I also ask my colleagues to take into account that similar violations have occurred at Tsinghua. I also believe the concerns about academic freedom should be considered along with the general question of whether we should be cooperating with a government that is violating the human rights of millions in Xinjiang. and engaging in genocide. I am including here a link to a report by the AAUP on these issues:
   https://www.aaup.org/article/academic-freedom-and-china#.YDaIcGNOnAI

2. I believe quite firmly that the proposed joint degree with Peking University would be a poor reflection on Cornell. I would first like to remind everyone of the university’s guidelines on ethical international engagement. As a co-author of this document, it is apparent that Peking University is clearly in violation of the guidelines. I’d like to reference a few relatively recent actions by PKU’s administration that are not consistent with Cornell University values (as stated in the document, this includes promoting the social good, respect for diversity, and academic freedom, among others).

   -In spring 2018, PKU subjected a group of #MeToo student activists to sustained harassment and threats after they submitted a request for information about an incident twenty years prior in which a professor had allegedly sexually assaulted a student. The victim subsequently committed suicide. I recommend reading the open letter penned by PKU student Yue Xin detailing how the administration tried to force her to remain quiet about this.

   -Also in 2018, PKU officials worked closely with security forces to crush labor activism among their students. This involved a series of students and alumni being kidnapped, some of them while on campus. As one student said, “The whole of Peking University is like under the white terror now, (the security guards) will come after you even if you were just at the scene where the student activists were distributing leaflets.” Students have since been subjected to intense and ongoing surveillance and harassment by PKU authorities. I recommend reading the below translation of a student’s blog post (Orwell in the Chinese classroom) detailing some of these actions.

   The context of the Uyghur genocide and broader political repression makes ethical engagement in China quite complex, but not impossible. Nonetheless, we have enough concrete evidence of specific actions PKU has recently taken that clearly violate our guidelines for ethical engagement. I believe it would be a huge mistake for Cornell to issue a joint degree with a university that takes extreme measures to silence female students for raising concerns about sexual assault while subjecting labor activists to encompassing surveillance and harassment. Let’s hope the Senate agrees and that the Hotel School takes these concerns seriously.

   Background reading
   Translation: Open Letter on PKU #MeToo Case: https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2018/04/translation-open-letter-on-peking-university-metoo-case/

   Police ‘kidnap’ 10 labour activists across China: Rights group: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/police-kidnap-10-labour-activists-across-china-rights-group

   Orwell in the Chinese Classroom: https://madeinchinajournal.com/2019/05/27/orwell-in-the-chinese-classroom/

3. I would recommend amending the SOS resolution to state that it is “contingent on development of a comprehensive plan covering the kinds of scenarios our peers have encountered when operating similar joint programs with Chinese partners.”

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