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.
Tainan City Councilor Lu Kun-fu (盧崑福) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday sparked further controversy when he echoed remarks by KMT caucus whip Alex Fai (費鴻泰) that Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) should be executed for an increase in domestic COVID-19 cases. Chen heads the Central Epidemic Command Center. Lu at a question-and-answer session at the Tainan City Council said that a lapse in disease prevention measures at China Airlines, which has led to a cluster infection, could have been controlled. However, as the airline’s pilots were allowed a shortened quarantine period of three days and were placed
‘COLD ATTITUDE’: The man claimed that his wife of nearly 50 years had not cooked or done any laundry for 40 years and that she refused to bathe A court last month rejected a man’s application for a divorce over lack of evidence that his wife “would rather feed stray dogs” than her husband. The 90-year-old man, surnamed Chao (趙), filed for divorce from his wife of nearly 50 years, surnamed Tung (董), saying that she had not cooked or done any laundry for 40 years. “Every morning my wife goes to Gaoping Bridge to feed stray dogs and does not come home until late,” Chao said. “I am 90 and I need to be taken care of,” he said, complaining of his wife’s “cold attitude” toward him. Chao also complained in
The Taipei City Government yesterday officially launched the “YouBike 2.0” system, an upgraded version of the bicycle rental service, saying that it aims to expand the service to more than 1,200 stations throughout the city. The system yesterday activated 160 new stations, in addition to 103 stations in the Gongguan (公館) shopping area near the National Taiwan University campus. A trial run of YouBike2.0 was launched there in January last year. The Taipei Department of Transportation said that bicycles of the upgraded system feature solar panels and card censors, which allow users to rent them by swiping their EasyCard or scanning a QR
DATA-DRIVEN: The dedicated department used big data to find sexual harassment hot spots on the Mass Rapid Transit system to take measures against perpetrators Most incidents of sexual harassment and secret photography in Taipei’s MRT metropolitan railway system over the past five years occurred at three stations, the Rapid Transit Division of the Taipei City Police Department said in a statement yesterday. Most incidents were recorded at Zhongxiao-Fuxing MRT Station, followed by Taipei Main and Zhongxiao-Dunhua MRT stations, the department said, adding that the results were obtained through big data analysis. The system, which serves Taipei and New Taipei City, handles about 2.2 million passengers per day, and most cases of secret photography and sexual harassment — usually involving touching a victims buttocks or chest
RSS