WASHINGTON – House officials on Monday began a probe into Harvard University after students protesting a speech by a Beijing official there were booted from the event and allegedly allowed to be harassed by Chinese students, The Post has learned.
Students Cosette Wu and Tsering Yangchen stood and yelled protests as Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng spoke at an April 20 event at the elite Harvard Kennedy School – only to be physically dragged from the room, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said in a letter to the school’s interim president, Alan Garber.
A student from China forcefully threw Wu, a Taiwanese American, from the auditorium, according to video of the incident. Yangchen was also kicked out and was later followed by a Chinese student who demanded to know the names of the other protesters at the event, frightening her.
“This incident raises serious questions regarding possible transnational repression by the Chinese government and the involvement of international students from China at Harvard in acts of harassment and intimidation condoned by the Chinese government against its critics,” the committee wrote in its letter.
Noting recent similar incidences, including the conviction of a former Chinese student from Berklee College of Music in Boston for “threatening and harassing a fellow Chinese student for posting pro-democracy fliers on campus,” the select committee urged Garber to ensure Harvard students are safe from Beijing’s grasp.
“As the number of students from China skyrocketed in US universities since 2009, so have efforts by the Chinese government to monitor, control and manipulate them,” the select committee wrote. “Chinese-government controlled student associations … have reportedly engaged in harassment and intimidation of Chinese students who are openly critical of the Chinese government.”
Arguing that Harvard should “ensure a safe environment for students’ freedom of expression and push back against any foreign government effort to silence their critics on campus,” the select committee pressed Garber for more information around the event’s organization and security – noting that the way the students were treated “appear to constitute assault and battery under Massachusetts law.”
The select committee asked 13 question of the Ivy League school, including whether faculty worked with the Chinese government on security policy for the event, if any of the abrasive students involved were disciplined, whether Harvard has used any federal funding to support student groups associated with the Chinese government and what the school is doing to ensure its students’ freedoms.
“Universities should be bastions of freedom, and prestigious institutions like Harvard should hold themselves to an even higher standard to ensure a safe environment for students’ freedom of expression and push back against any foreign government effort to silence their critics on campus,” the select committee wrote.