University presidents need to stop passing the buck

Chow Pak-chin writes that scandalous behavior on campus calls for more than joint statements by our institutions' handsomely compensated leaders

In his speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China, President Xi Jinping was quoted as admonishing Hong Kong's civil servants about their obligations, one of which was answerability. Now, although university presidents aren't civil servants, as heads of tertiary educational institutions they have recently been subjects of dishonor because of their inaction over scandalous events staged by their charges.

The reality is there has been an accelerating pandemic of moral decay across the city's university campuses in recent years. First there were the students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong booing the national anthem while watching the live broadcast of the 2018 World Cup Asian qualifier, held at the Mong Kok Stadium on Nov 17, 2015. Then there were banners and posters advocating an independent Hong Kong across various university campuses, complete with a joint open letter issued by the student unions of City University and Education University and the likes, in defense of their act in the name of freedom of speech and thought. The last nail in the coffin came when the former president of CUHK's student union, Ernie Chow Shue-fung, called a Mandarin-speaking student a "Shina person", a derogative term the Japanese once used to address China and Chinese people. Less than 24 hours later, signs carrying congratulatory messages on the death of Undersecretary for Education Choi Yuk-lin's eldest son appeared on the so-called Democracy Wall at Education University's campus.

Open condemnation soon followed, with the Education University issuing a statement that reaffirmed its respect of rights to freedom of expression, while rebuking the "offensive acts" as "shameful", calling for the posters of the signs to "self-reflect". In response to the appearance of independence banners and posters, CUHK Vice-Chancellor Joseph Sung Jao-yiu was quoted as saying: "The Basic Law stipulates that Hong Kong is an inalienable part of the People's Republic of China. The Chinese University reiterates that the university is against the notion of Hong Kong independence. We do not want our campus to turn into a place for different political groups to spread their propaganda," followed by his request for removal of the material.

So much open condemnation, yet so little actual action so far. It's perhaps not unfair to suggest the public statements made by these university presidents carry pathetically little power of reprimand. The truth is, as the chief administrator of a tertiary educational institution, so much more is expected of the university's president when it comes to disciplining his/her charges, so much more than just issuing an open letter or making an open speech of reproof, so to speak. The position as president of a university was never meant to be a cushy job, with the young generation's development and acknowledgement of acceptable moral standards on his/her shoulders, but that is precisely why university presidents are paid significantly more than the professors, on whom society's expectation of moral education is less often imposed.

In clear contrast to the passive, perfunctory public statements made by Hong Kong's university presidents, the actions carried out by universities in the United States in similar contexts were drastically more punitive, executed with the right kind of rigor to safeguard the university's integrity and reputation. In June this year, at least 10 students already accepted at Harvard University were expelled after they were discovered to have been participating in a group exchange of racist and sexually offensive Facebook messages. While the school respects individuals' freedom of speech, the school's spokesperson added that the school had notified all accepted applicants that their status can be rescinded for "behavior that brings into question their honesty, maturity, or moral character". Similarly, in 2015, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter at the University of Oklahoma was shut down, with two of its members expelled, after a video surfaced in which SAE fraternity members were shown singing racist chants.

All too often we hear politicians or newspaper columnists say how politics and education ought to be treated as two discrete entities, that there is no point in politicizing affairs at educational institutions. The irony, however, is that it was the students and certain educators who first brought politics onto the campus. Whether to suspend or dismiss students on grounds of immoral or dishonest conduct is a decision that rests in the hands of the university presidents, who do not seem to believe that stricter disciplinary actions are needed at a time when anti-constitutional thoughts are being propagated at the city's tertiary educational institutions. To be in the position to discipline and to fail this duty is not just a gross disappointment, but these university presidents could be inadvertently sowing the seeds for even more disgrace to come. The curious and mortifying question is, after shifting responsibility to right the wrong to the students, are these university presidents now planning to pass the buck to the police, who eventually may have to intervene?

(HK Edition 09/20/2017 page8)