While administrators and professors are aware of the importance of academic freedom for students studying in the United States from abroad, equally important, yet less often discussed, is the issue of the consequences of controversial research conducted in American higher education institutions by undergraduate international students when they return to their home countries.
As a historian, academic, and international relations specialist with a legal background, I can clearly see that more must be done to mitigate risk for international students studying in the U.S.
Many students come to the U.S. to study abroad from nations such as China, where many topics, such as Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan, are highly censored and regulated.
Regardless of one’s political, ideological, or cultural perspectives on academic freedom, administrators and professors are tasked with a “duty of care” to protect all students so that they may study, research, and write on issues that expand the corpus of knowledge and inquiry within their given fields.
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Administrators are also tasked with looking downstream for the best interest of their students, both domestic and international.
Therefore, it is of the utmost imperative that university staff take a risk management approach and are informed of the repercussions that many international students may face when pursuing an interest in a field of inquiry that violates the legal mandates promulgated in their countries of origin.
This means that administrators must be proactive and discuss, with both professors and incoming students, the realities of the seemingly irreconcilable research freedoms in the U.S. versus the often restricted and directed research activities within their nations of origin.
Much like institutional academic freedom in relation to professorial academic freedom—which at first blush may appear irreconcilable in nature—there is a delicate policy balance to be struck based upon carefully analyzing the given circumstances at hand.
Committees should be set up and meet annually so administrators and professors know these issues. Pre-coursework information sessions should be required at orientation so that international students can take measures to protect themselves online and during their studies.
Professors should ask whether researching a controversial subject is necessary for an international student to accomplish their goal in a course or to attain their college degree. This is especially salient in the undergraduate sphere, as these international students have the highest rate of return to their home nations.
Professors should always pose this critical question: “Will this research affect your future graduate and career opportunities in the years to come?”
If the response is uncertain, then they shouldn’t be researching it as an undergraduate.
Dissenters of this policy line may state that this will prevent free inquiry. Yet, if carried out deftly and guided by a knowledgeable professor, students can still research and write about a given subject of interest that will further their personal educational and career prospects.
Undergraduate research is important, yet this period is often a period of learning and experimentation. Consider your decisions at eighteen years old, dear reader.
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The goal is to create opportunities for these students so that when they return home, or if they decide to remain in the U.S., they can make informed decisions as educated adults as to which graduate research or career paths they decide to take.
These points are brought to the fore because it is very easy for an administrator or professor to advocate for free speech. Yet, the neglect of understanding or thinking about the downstream adverse effects of academic freedoms on these students can be detrimental to their lives.
While it is of the utmost importance to preserve the freedom to pursue the proverbial truth here in the U.S., cogent administrative policymaking requires a proactive approach for international students, which considers the true realities of international politics while protecting their futures.
The job of an educator is to expand a narrow mind and to teach students not what to think but rather how to think critically.
Image credit: Nick Youngson, NY Photographic, via Pix4free.org. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
“Professors should ask whether researching a controversial subject is necessary for an international student to accomplish their goal in a course or to attain their college degree. This is especially salient in the undergraduate sphere, as these international students have the highest rate of return to their home nations.”
NO!!!
The solution is to not admit them in the first place — instead of censoring our educational system to meet the bigotry of foreign tyrants, we need to simply consider it in the best interest of these young people to deny them admission.
This is a terrible solution to a real problem. Yes, there is a danger that students and staff can face foreign repression for their ideas. But the answer is not a “risk management” committee telling them to shut up. The answer is for universities to aggressively defend the rights of their students and staff if they are threatened with punishment.