Freedom in higher education under threat from Chinese interference, say academics

Academic freedoms in the UK are under threat from the Chinese government, according to Michelle Shipworth from University College London (UCL) and Laura Murphy from the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice.

Shipworth alleges that she was pressured by colleagues to change parts of her module following complaints made against her use of China’s slave population as a case study in one of her lectures.

“It’s an insidious way of undermining other populations’ independence of thinking”, she told The Times.

Murphy also claimed her academic freedoms had been limited. She accused Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) of halting her research on China’s treatment of Uyghurs in response to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Both UCL and SHU deny violating the academics’ freedoms because of interference from the Chinese government.

Both academics have called for foreign intervention within higher education to be taken more seriously by the British government

A UCL spokesperson said the university is “committed to upholding the rights of our staff”, and SHU emphasised their commitment to “promoting freedom of speech and academic freedom within the law”, after apologising to Murphy.

Shipworth submitted written evidence to a parliamentary committee’s inquiry into transnational repression in the UK, citing papers from NGOs like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as proof of the CCP’s involvement in censoring higher education internationally.

She accused the Chinese government of repressing Chinese students studying abroad by threatening to punish their families at home. She also suggested that particularly nationalistic students might pressure their classmates to denounce anti-Chinese material in class, with other students following along to avoid being reported.

Both academics have called for foreign intervention within higher education to be taken more seriously by the UK government. Not doing so, warns Murphy, will corrode “our institutions, our freedoms, our knowledge, and our power to affect change.”

The UK government has since denounced Chinese involvement in higher education as “absolutely unacceptable.”