UK University Halts China Research; Silence on Israel deafening
The Guardian reports Sheffield Hallam University halted a leading professor's research into forced labor and supply chains in China after pressure from Beijing. Apparently, higher education institutions are now global compliance officers, diligently ensuring no feelings are hurt—especially those attached to significant state power and market access. This self-censorship is alarming, yet curiously,
similar institutional 'delicacy' is rarely applied when critiquing, say, Israeli policies or US military actions, which receive billions in untagged aid from Western governments. We saw this deference recently as Congress rushed to approve HR 815, providing $14 billion in military aid to Israel, despite mounting evidence of civilian casualties and human rights concerns, without a peep from
academic institutions funded by the very governments pushing this aid. One might wonder if academic courage is directly proportional to a regime's perceived economic importance, or perhaps, inversely proportional to the amount of lobbying money flowing in Washington. It seems 'human rights' are only universally investigable when the subject isn't well-connected.