If something is harassment or merely exercising their right to express their opinion is also a matter for subjective judgement and he said/she said type finger pointing, and highly dependent on context and frequency (which can be hard to find solid concrete evidence for without a lot of work).
It sounds like some of the students not only threatened to report him to the Chinese authorities, but told him that they had done so, and he has proof who made these threats and claims. They didn’t try to hide it.
If they have a right to do that, is that harassment?
I doubt Purdue (up to now) has any policy saying it’s illegal to report someone to authorities for something they did. Even if those authorities are not popular right now and the thing they did is ok at Perdue but not at home.
Is it a ‘dick move’ and offend our sensibilities? Sure.
But that doesn’t mean it’s any different than if a bunch of folks from the US were at a French university during the 50’s and someone called the FBI telling them that Bob was saying a lot of scary things about communism and just got a Russian Girlfriend and maybe they should look into it.
If it’s true, then of course the FBI is going to look into it. If true, it’s also unlikely to count as harassment. It’s also pretty terrible from 5 different angles.
People have been expelled from universities for videos where they used the N-word. I agree with imposing that consequence (unless it was in the distant past and the student has since shown genuine rehabilitation). Reporting someone to a regime which tortures, kills, and harvests the organs of dissenters is orders of magnitudes worse than using a racist slur.
Purdue certainly has policy against harassment. Other students followed and directly harassed, Purdue is not the government so it doesn’t even need to weigh free speech or legality.
> But that doesn’t mean it’s any different than if a bunch of folks from the US were at a French university during the 50’s and someone called the FBI telling them that Bob was saying a lot of scary things about communism and just got a Russian Girlfriend and maybe they should look into it.
I’m sorry, but is this supposed to be a counter point? This kind of behavior would have been ridiculous and unacceptable as well, unless said US citizen had access to state secrets or something of that nature.
^Fully agreed. That period in time is literally referred to as "Red Scare" and is considered to be a massive failure of an initiative based solely on fearmongering.
And yes, it is taught this way even in semi-rural high schools in southern US states as well (I attended a high school like that myself in GA about 10 years ago). It's like saying "well, US did the whole Trail of Tears thing centuries ago, so we can do a soft-genocide in 2021 as well with Uyghurs".
That type of an argument doesn't sound convincing in the eyes of anyone who doesn't already support what China is doing or some very vocal radical left minority (aka tankies and adjacent groups) in the west. For an example of the latter, just check r/sino, it feels like reading into some parallel universe.
I agree with you, though I will caveat that by noting that, as an american, we tend to amplify the faults of our enemies and downplay those of our Allie’s and ourselves. I am by no means a China apologist but the rhetoric between the US and China over the last several years in concerning to me. It feels like people are looking to make everything in this relationship in a good vs evil narrative, no matter which camp you’re in.
What is happening to the Uighurs is easy for me to point out as crossing the line. But something like Hong Kong? As a westerner I was to support democracy and self determination, but by the same token, Hong Kong is indisputably part of china’s sovereign territory and it seems like a lot of people in the US think it’s ok to promote separatism in another country just because it shares our values. Why don’t I ever hear anyone apply that to our allies? ( cough cough Saudi cough)
I find myself sympathetic to the talkie rhetoric not because I believe in communism, but because I grew up in a generation that was lied into the Iraq war, and see similarities with the mind of nationalism that swept the country in the early 2000s. America never really atoned for abu ghraib, gitmo, cia black sites, signature strikes etc. and to me that is way more relevant to anything that we did in the 19th century.
reflexively I am just repulsed by the nationalistic rhetoric on these issues.
> If they have a right to do that, is that harassment?
You can harass someone with legal activity, making it illegal. If I show up outside your house everyday and stand on the sidewalk with a concealed weapon that is obviously illegal harassment. Standing on the sidewalk might be legal, carrying a concealed weapon may be legal, harassing someone with either is not.
> But that doesn’t mean it’s any different than if a bunch of folks from the US were at a French university during the 50’s and someone called the FBI telling them that Bob was saying a lot of scary things about communism and just got a Russian Girlfriend and maybe they should look into it.
You're right. This is something we will all need to worry about in the event that we time Travel to the 50's. When that happens, I'll criticize the US government, and encourage the French university to expel the American students. I guess we will need to settle for dealing with today's problems until time travel is possible :(
> If it’s true, then of course the FBI is going to look into it. If true, it’s also unlikely to count as harassment. It’s also pretty terrible from 5 different angles.
Why? I think your false assumption here is that everything the university should care about, the FBI should care about to, which is simply not true. You can outright break the law and the FBI not care depending on the law. I don't know that this falls into the category of things the FBI would deal with.
Interestingly enough, in most of your examples you are wrong - legally.
And you seem to be rather completely misreading my comment.
I’m not saying anything that the CCP, the students, or the university is doing is RIGHT.
I’m saying it happens, and it happens a lot, and it’s happened here in the US recently, and it’s not as illegal or clearly stoppable as people here seem to think.
So watch your ass, anyone that thinks that some moral right to speak truth is going to save you without some serious planning or thinking ahead (like the student who spoke out) - because you may very well be a martyr for a cause you did not plan to.
Because I’m one of those who likes to speak out, and I’ve almost been steamrolled by something before. So watch your ass.
> Interestingly enough, in most of your examples you are wrong - legally.
Care to point out which?
> I’m saying it happens, and it happens a lot, and it’s happened here in the US recently, and it’s not as illegal or clearly stoppable as people here seem to think.
Harassment is clearly illegal. It has a legal definition and everything. That being said, it is hard to prove, which is where the complications actually lay. In this case, it seems like there is plenty of evidence though.
> So watch your ass, anyone that thinks that some moral right to speak truth is going to save you without some serious planning or thinking ahead (like the student who spoke out) - because you may very well be a martyr for a cause you did not plan to.
I don't see where this fits into the conversation. Are you saying people shouldn't speak out? Are you saying reporting harassment to the police is bad?
> Because I’m one of those who likes to speak out, and I’ve almost been steamrolled by something before. So watch your ass.
> If they have a right to do that, is that harassment?
Yes. Having the right to say or do something doesn't mean it isn't harassment. But more importantly, the 'students' making these reports/threats are acting as agents of the CCP, projecting the CCP's power into an American university, and should be ejected from the country for that. What they were doing was espionage.
Read my comment above - I’m warning people that they’re being naive if they think it’s as clear cut as they think or this student isn’t pretty screwed for many reasons, regardless of how the rest of this turns out.
Even a public university can decide what they want to do when it comes to punishment for students they admit. You aren't owed an explanation no matter how much you pretend on the internet to care.
A public university has to respect the constitutional rights of it's students though. So there would be very strong legal protection for pro China students.
Edit: actually not sure if they are foreign nationals. Maybe someone knows if same applies?
The issue is of harassment and continued education at Purdue; not constitutional rights. It sounds like the pro China students were harassing Zhihao Kong. Purdue can decide what constitute harassment. 100% it's part of of every contract the student signs and agrees to as a part of their acceptance.
People have no problem bending the rules to punish people swiftly if it benefits them. It is only when it would be painful to do the right thing that people insist on their legal limitations.
This is a false statement. The only regulation here is title VI and title IX. The administration of a public university is not legally part of the government.
