TODD PITTINSKY for New York Daily News. Read the original article here.
When left-leaning groups like the Association of University Professors, right-leaning outfits like the National Association of Scholars and a bipartisan U.S. Senate investigation worry about the same thing, something’s either really right — or really wrong. In this case, something’s really wrong.
Since 2004, the Chinese Ministry of Education, through an agency called the Hanban, has funded and largely run Confucius Institutes, which teach Chinese language, history and culture at colleges around the world, including the United States. The Hanban typically supplies teachers, textbooks and — most importantly — operating funds, a tempting proposition for cash-strapped university administrations.
SUNY has accepted six such institutes — at Stony Brook University, University at Albany, the SUNY Global Center in New York City, Binghamton University, University at Buffalo and the State College of Optometry.
What’s really wrong here is that we’re outsourcing American education to a foreign propaganda operation. Li Changchun, a former head of propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party, called the Confucius Institutes “an important part of China’s overseas propaganda setup.” They teach Chinese history the way the Chinese government would like you to see it.
Would any campus American history department agree to such control by the U.S. Department of Education?
We don’t have to deduce potential concerns; they are there in black and white. Universities with Confucius Institutes sign contracts that require respect for Chinese law and otherwise jeopardize the university’s autonomy. That includes us. SUNY’s contracts pledge to respect Chinese law. Stony Brook, the State College of Optometry and Binghamton — according to their contracts — “must accept the assessment of the Headquarters on the teaching quality.”
This isn’t just legal boilerplate. Professors have reported pressure to keep the Hanban happy and its funding flowing. When Hanban officials toured UAlbany, faculty members’ doors were stripped of banners referencing Taiwan. The aforementioned bi-partisan U.S. Senate report concluded the control afforded the Confucius Institutes can “stifle academic freedom” and provide “an incomplete picture of Chinese government actions and policies that run counter to U.S. interests.”
Worried about academic freedom and censorship, universities including the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Penn State, McMaster University and Miami-Dade College have ended their CI arrangements and closed their Confucius Institutes.
SUNY has not. Nor has it explained to taxpayers why such intrusion into American academic freedom is acceptable — or even a good deal. Is this really the kind of political compromise taxpayers want their state universities to make?
