A Taiwanese professor on Sunday launched a petition to protect academic freedom following allegations last week that a majority of the nation’s universities signed letters agreeing to censor topics Beijing deems offensive.
Shih Hsin University on Thursday last week was accused of signing a letter promising Chinese universities that its faculty would not discuss sensitive political topics in classes offered to Chinese exchange students, such as “one China, one Taiwan,” “two Chinas” and Taiwanese independence.
The Ministry of Education said a preliminary investigation revealed that at least 80 Taiwanese universities have signed similar agreements and that a full investigation is to be conducted in the next two weeks.
Photo: screengrab from Facebook
Fan Yun (范雲), a National Taiwan University sociology professor and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) convener, called on professors to petition against political restrictions imposed on them by universities.
“As a teacher in Taiwanese higher education, I feel ashamed and heartbroken. In a university classroom, what one teaches and refrains from teaching are both political actions. If humanities education … is obliged to negate Taiwanese independence in discussions about Taiwan’s future, we have no such thing as academic freedom in universities,” she said on Facebook.
Fan said the scandal is a “crisis of Taiwanese democracy,” adding that universities have a duty to safeguard academic discourse and research freedoms, but the incident shows that half the nation’s institutions are prepared to sacrifice those principles.
“There is no such thing as apolitical academic discourse. Marking any topic as beyond the pale of learning or discussion is in itself politically manipulative,” she said, adding that universities that do not honor academic freedom are “no better than counterfeit food products.”
A number of university faculties and student organizations have participated in Fan’s movement by signing the petition and posting photographs displaying their names, institutions and the message “academic freedom is not for sale.”
Former Shih Hsin University president Lai Ting-ming (賴鼎銘) and professor Chen Cheng-liang (陳政亮), have signed the petition.
The National Taiwan University Student Association and the National Taiwan University Graduate Student Association issued a joint statement condemning the agreements, saying that they compromise academic freedom, limit exchange students learning experience and destroy the integrity of cross-strait academic exchanges.
“Academic freedom is a right guaranteed by the University Act (大學法) and should not be abridged because university administrators are afraid of China,” they said.
Resurrecting censorship on campus is offensive to the democracy advocates and dissidents who died during the Martial Law era, they added.
ALARM GROWS: US officials are concerned that China’s claim that the Taiwan Strait is an internal waterway is a deliberate effort to muddy the legal status of Taiwan US President Joe Biden’s administration has decided to reject a vague new assertion by China that the Taiwan Strait is not “international waters” and is increasingly concerned the stance could result in more frequent challenges at sea for Taiwan, people familiar with the matter said. Chinese officials have made such remarks repeatedly in meetings with US counterparts over the past few months. In the past, while China regularly protested US military moves in the Taiwan Strait, the legal status of the waters was not a regular talking point in meetings with US officials. The timing of the assertion is causing alarm within the
‘HIDDEN GEM’: The city earned plaudits for its low crime rate, world-class healthcare system, cheap cost of living and easy public transportation Taipei has been named the 10th best city in the world for quality of living in an annual survey by the editors of Monocle, a UK-based global affairs and lifestyle magazine. The survey, which is to be published in the magazine’s July/August issue, selected the world’s top 25 cities based on factors including cost of living, retail, hospitality, culture and access to green spaces, as well as feedback from Monocle correspondents. Taipei’s 10th place finish was one place down from a year earlier. The survey ranked Copenhagen as the world’s best city, with Zurich, Lisbon, Helsinki and Stockholm rounding out the top five.
NO COMORBIDITIES: The girl died of encephalitis, the sixth COVID-19-related death of the disease this year and 19th death of a child from the virus, the center said The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 52,213 new domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases and 171 deaths from the virus, including a four-year-old girl, who had been diagnosed with encephalitis, and a 19-year-old man, who had underlying health conditions. “The caseloads are usually higher on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but they [yesterday] fell 7.3 percent from the day before,” Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said. Chuang, who is the CECC’s spokesman, said that most cities and counties reported a drop in new cases, and the CECC expects fewer than 50,000 new cases today. The center said that 150 of
LIMIT: The CECC has capped the number of weekly arrivals to 25,000, which critics said has limited the number of available flights and caused ticket prices to soar The government is not likely to raise the cap on the number of inbound travelers before the end of this month, despite the apparent effect on the number of inbound flights, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said yesterday. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Wednesday last week eased quarantine rules for inbound travelers, who must undergo three days of home quarantine upon arrival and spend another four days in self-initiated disease prevention. It also capped the number of inbound travelers to 25,000 per week. The weekly limit has drawn criticism that it has limited the number of flights
RSS