You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
The American Association of University Professors has written an open letter expressing its growing concerns about Yale University’s planned joint campus with the National University of Singapore. The letter raises the fundamental question of “whether academic freedom, and the personal freedoms that are a necessary prerequisite to its exercise, can in fact be sustained on a campus within what is a substantially authoritarian regime.”
Yale professors have raised similar concerns about Yale-NUS College in the past, in addition to criticizing the process through which the liberal arts college was approved: Yale faculty never took a vote. The AAUP’s letter calls on the Yale Corporation to release all documents and agreements related to Yale-NUS, arguing that this is the only way through which “a healthy atmosphere for shared governance” can begin to be restored. The association also raises 16 specific questions that it says should be discussed in open forums. These deal largely with restrictions on speech and individual freedoms in Singapore and include: "What risks to students and faculty are inherent in forms of campus speech, from Internet postings and email messages to broadcast lectures, that may be critical of the government, its laws, and its officials, including members of the Singapore judiciary?" "Can Yale-NUS community email be protected from government surveillance, even if email is sent unencrypted?" and "What risks to students, staff, and faculty with various sexual orientations are posed by Singapore's laws?" (Singapore criminalizes gay sex.)
Yale-NUS' president, Pericles Lewis, said the letter only recently came to his attention. In a statement, he reaffirmed that "academic freedom will be a bedrock principle of the college." Lewis' statement does not address restrictions on speech and personal freedoms specific to the Singaporean context, but states that the college's personnel practices are being developed based on its policies of academic freedom and non-discrimination.
