(TibetanReview.net, Mar10’24) — The University College London (UCL) has come under criticism after a professor said she had been banned from teaching a course about China in order to avoid putting Chinese students off from applying to be taught at the institution. Michelle Shipworth, associate professor at the leading university, said her bosses were “conceding to the censorship demands of some Chinese students” and had been left “suicidal” after she was taken off a research module she led for a decade, reported the dailymail.co.uk Mar 9.
The public research university is said to be the second-largest university in the UK by total enrolment and the largest by postgraduate enrolment.
A Chinee student complained against Ms Shipworth, 58, after she highlighted data from the Global Slavery Index which suggested China had the second highest prevalence of modern slavery in the world.
As she delivered the module called Data Detective, which described the Global Slavery Index as “terribly inaccurate”, a Chinese student stood up and accused her of making a “horrible provocation”.
Days later, she received an email from head Professor Neil Strachan of Bartlett School of Environment, Energy & Resources, suggesting she modify how she delivered the course, a request she declined; she then found herself shut out of the software course leaders use to organise materials.
The following week, two colleagues implored her to drop the China section from the module, which she then did. Nevertheless, earlier this year, the issue reared its head again and she was informed she had been accused of being “anti-Chinese” after catching two students from the country cheating in exams in 2018 and 2022. Both were expelled.
These led to Mr Strachan taking action against her because the university needed to “retain a good reputation among future Chinese applicants”, the report said.
UCL has since said it was investigating the full circumstances of Ms Shipworth’s situation, branding her claims “clearly concerning”.
Mr Strachan has said Shipworth had been accused of “being biased against students from a single country – China”. He has also informed her another academic was taking charge of the module that she had created and taught for a decade.
He has said: “We have a collective duty to ensure all students have a good educational experience at UCL and, in order to be commercially viable, our MSc courses need to retain a good reputation amongst future Chinese applicants.”
Shipworth has said she was left “suicidal” after being removed from the course and also told to avoid tweeting about China – something she had rarely done. She feels that she has been “cancelled” in favour of commercial interests.
“I am astonished that asking students a question about China, and my raising of cases of contract cheating, is being used to justify curtailing my academic freedom and freedom of speech,” the report quoted her as saying.
Academic institutions in the UK are depending on foreign students for an increasing share of their total income – almost a fifth of income in 2021/22 came from overseas students, the report noted.
UCL has more than 15,000 Chinese students and 400 staff from mainland China, and fees can be as much as £40,000 a year, compared to the annual UK cap at around £9,250, the report said.
A group called Free Speech Union (FSU) has taken up Ms Shipworth’s case, and urged the university to remove the restrictions imposed on the academic.
Benjamin Jones, from the FSU, has said: “There can be no basis for them, no defence of them. Michelle has the right to academic freedom, to freedom of speech, and we will defend that right.”
Meanwhile, a UCL spokesperson has said, “While it would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases, the issues raised in this article are clearly concerning and we are working to establish what has happened.”
The spokesperson has also defended the university’s “long tradition of safeguarding freedom of speech and commitment to uphold the rights of its staff and students to facilitate debate and exercise their academic freedom of enquiry.”