11 thoughts on "Faculty Senate – March 10, 2021"

1. Thank you so much for setting aside time to focus on these important issues.

   I am concerned that general statements of principle, such as assurances of protecting academic freedom, are poor guides to the types of issues that are already coming up. To name a few that are happening right now around the U.S. and at Cornell, PRC students studying by Zoom, whether here or in China, are already self-censoring; faculty are self-censoring to protect PRC students; PRC students are mobilizing to protest events perceived as anti-Chinese, e.g., about Xinjiang’s genocide ….

   I would personally find it useful to organize some conversations around case studies that do not suggest easy decisions or answers. What are the risks of any particular IDDP? What policies and events at the entity in question might suggests threats to academic freedom, and to the safety of students and faculty? If we decide that it is fine to establish a particular IDDP, in what specific kinds of circumstances might the Cornell partner decide that they can no longer in good conscience sustain the relationship? What are the mechanisms for monitoring and making decisions based on evolving situations?

   As one more resource: Sophie Richardson at Human Rights Watch has been monitoring the unfolding situation, including of human rights abuses in Xinjiang. I believe she helped design HRW’s “Resisting Chinese Government Efforts to Undermine Academic Freedom Abroad: A Code of Conduct for Colleges, Universities, and Academic Institutions Worldwide” applicable to collaborations with Chinese partners ./default/files>./supporting_resources/190321_china_academic_freedom_coc_0.pdf

   TJ Hinrichs, (Chinese) History th289

2. [Originally posted on the Feb 24 Meeting Webpage]

   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

3. [Originally posted on the Feb 24 Meeting Webpage]

   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/

4. [Originally posted on the Feb 24 Meeting Webpage]

   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.”

5. It would be best for the Senate to put consideration of “a collaboration that is fundamentally a research collaboration” in parentheses for this upcoming meeting, and to focus on the collaboration involved in offering a dual degree program. The time made available for discussion in the upcoming meeting has shrunk from 60 minutes to 45; this adds urgency to such bracketing.
   Harold Hodes, Philosophy

   • I agree with this concern. In countries with repressive governments, research collaborations can be established that offer valuable hope an relief to the academics there. Joint degree programs are not as good a vehicle for that purpose. Discussing solely the latter can be a lot clearer.

     • I am all for having a focused discussion on IDDPs. However, explaining how research-based collaborations, faculty-on-their-own collaborations, student exchange programs, and other related activities are different from IDDPs will help us understand IDDPs.

       CVL

6. I strongly support the creation of a process to screen proposals. The Senate ought to call for a pause in approving this program and call for the creation of fair, transparent, and principled process before coming to a verdict on the specific program being proposed. In particular, I would want to know more about the process by which the proposed degree program’s intellectual exchange and research collaboration was evaluated, what opportunity the organizing unit had to contribute to the deliberations, and a more substantial discussion/summation by the faculty oversight committee of its merits and risks.

   It is worth taking the time to get the process right. This may create a media storm and I want to make sure that we have put in place a process that is principled and fair.

   • Hi, everybody…I can only speak for myself but I would personally support a process that entailed:

     a) a pause in the consideration of the Hotel School/Peking University proposal that included the withdrawal of the “Sense of the Senate” resolution now pending before the Faculty Senate;

     b) the creation of a general process through which joint degree programs would be reviewed before coming before the Faculty Senate;

     and c) once that process is in place, renewed consideration of the Hotel School/Peking University proposal.

     All the best to you all!

     Richard Bensel
     rfb2

   • I strongly agree with the comment below (above?) –that we need to “take the time to get the process right.”

7. I was not aware about this forum until now.

   Two things:

   1,
   We have an extraordinary situation: The Chinese regime is in the midst of a massive genocide, a major crime under international law, and which is also the most atrocious ongoing act of racist violence on the planet, at this moment.
   About this, there is no doubt — nor about how obedient foreigners continuing business as usual are used to legitimate the regime and its genocide.
   For an outline of the facts about the genocide, see: https://newlinesinstitute.org/uyghurs/the-uyghur-genocide-an-examination-of-chinas-breaches-of-the-1948-genocide-convention/ ; more here: https://uhrp.org/featured-articles/chinas-re-education-concentration-camps-xinjiang
   Note also the need for solidarity with the many hundreds of ethnic academic colleagues and intellectuals who have been swept up along with the millions of ordinary people targeted only because of their ethnicity. Here is a tip-of-the-iceberg list that includes 77 university professors like ourselves, including a university president sentenced to death: https://uhrp.org/press-release/uhrp-update-435-intellectuals-detained-and-disappeared-uyghur-homeland.html
   Clearly what we should be debating is not new China programs, but a resolution for Cornell to condemn the racist atrocities, including those against our colleagues.

   2,
   Genocide denialism is an atrocious thing, yet Cornellians should be aware of the methods the Chinese regime deploys to manipulate people into parroting the party line. When they press Chinese people abroad into silence or even to openly defend the regime, and even to defend such horrors as its current genocide and its atrocious unilateral treaty breach in Hong Kong, they often do it with the threat of harm and injury, including to relatives back in China.
   Nevertheless, such genocide denialism must also be clearly and unequivocally condemned by our leaders. It cannot be tolerated or ignored, any more than Holocaust denialism or racist discourse in the US.

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