In a little-noticed anti-terror initiative, the George W. Bush administration is trying to get colleges and universities to stop some foreign students from studying sensitive subjects. Educators fear they're being dragged into academic censorship.
"We have a responsibility to work with the government, and we're ready to do so, but we're afraid of being turned into course police," said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, which represents 1,800 public and private colleges.
The issue arose in October when Bush directed the government to prohibit certain international students from receiving "education and training in sensitive areas" involving the "development and use of weapons of mass destruction."
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is working with federal agencies to "identify sensitive courses of study."
A White House Fact Sheet issued with the presidential directive ordering the studies said: "A goal of the program is to prohibit the education and training of foreign nationals who would use their training to harm the United States and its allies."
Academic leaders say they are being largely shut out of what has become an internal government debate.
"They've got law enforcement agencies and national security and intelligence agencies who want to be more restrictive, and they have research and science and technology officials who are trying to explain how academic research works," said George Leventhal, policy analyst with the Association of American Universities. The group represents 63 universities heavily involved in scientific research.
Other nations are beginning to train more of their homegrown scientists, but the US remains a major destination for academics seeking advanced scientific or engineering degrees. A National Science Foundation report says the percentage of foreign-born scientists and engineers is growing at all degree levels in America, with the highest ratio, 45 percent, in engineering.
The White House says the government wants to work with the academic community.
"Recommendations that will come out of the interagency working group will include the academic and science community being consulted on the finer points of any final response," Kathryn Harrington, a spokeswoman for the White House Office of Science and Technology, said Tuesday.
Academic groups see more questions than answers.
"Once a student is granted a visa and tries to change from organic chemistry to biochemistry, what are we supposed to do? Move them out?" said Richard Harpel, director of federal relations for the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges.
"The more subtle but less obvious dilemma is of a student who may room with a person who is an American student ... in a sensitive area," said Harpel, whose organization represents 213 public universities in every state in the country.
An electronic tracking system to be in place by the end of the year is supposed to enable instant communication between the government and academic officials so the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service are notified of any change in a student's visa status.
Changing college majors, leaving school, taking a job or getting married all involve changes in visa status.
CROSS-STRAIT COLLABORATION: The new KMT chairwoman expressed interest in meeting the Chinese president from the start, but she’ll have to pay to get in Beijing allegedly agreed to let Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) around the Lunar New Year holiday next year on three conditions, including that the KMT block Taiwan’s arms purchases, a source said yesterday. Cheng has expressed interest in meeting Xi since she won the KMT’s chairmanship election in October. A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consensus on a meeting was allegedly reached after two KMT vice chairmen visited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) in China last month. Beijing allegedly gave the KMT three conditions it had to
STAYING ALERT: China this week deployed its largest maritime show of force to date in the region, prompting concern in Taipei and Tokyo, which Beijing has brushed off Deterring conflict over Taiwan is a priority, the White House said in its National Security Strategy published yesterday, which also called on Japan and South Korea to increase their defense spending to help protect the first island chain. Taiwan is strategically positioned between Northeast and Southeast Asia, and provides direct access to the second island chain, with one-third of global shipping passing through the South China Sea, the report said. Given the implications for the US economy, along with Taiwan’s dominance in semiconductors, “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority,” it said. However, the strategy also reiterated
‘BALANCE OF POWER’: Hegseth said that the US did not want to ‘strangle’ China, but to ensure that none of Washington’s allies would be vulnerable to military aggression Washington has no intention of changing the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Saturday, adding that one of the US military’s main priorities is to deter China “through strength, not through confrontation.” Speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, Hegseth outlined the US Department of Defense’s priorities under US President Donald Trump. “First, defending the US homeland and our hemisphere. Second, deterring China through strength, not confrontation. Third, increased burden sharing for us, allies and partners. And fourth, supercharging the US defense industrial base,” he said. US-China relations under
FRAUD ISSUES: The app meets none of Taiwan’s 15 cybersecurity standards, and in the past year, about 1,706 fraud cases have been identified on it The Ministry of the Interior yesterday ordered Taiwanese Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu (小紅書, also known as RedNote in English) for a year, after detecting hundreds of instances of fraud on the platform. The ISPs have been instructed to block access to the app to its more than 3 million users in Taiwan, effective immediately, Deputy Minister of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) told a news conference at the National Police Agency’s Fraud Prevention Center. The order is being implemented via protocols governing domain name system (DNS) response policy zones, he said. Xiaohongshu meets none
RSS