‘Even in America, I don’t have the same rights that Americans do’
Controversy over a decision by Yale University’s student newspaper not to allow Chinese student journalists to anonymously cover a protest of the Chinese government’s “zero Covid” policy is bringing renewed attention to how international students from authoritarian countries may feel politically vulnerable, even when on American campuses.
Editors at the Yale Daily News denied the request of two student reporters from China to remove their bylines from an article on a campus protest last week of China’s restrictive Covid measures and declined to publish the piece. The editors said publishing articles anonymously would prevent readers from holding reporters accountable for inaccuracies or biases in their work.
But in an interview with The Chronicle, one of the two Chinese student journalists said the editors’ decision had failed to account for the risks they or their families back in China could face for highlighting criticism of their home government. “People need to understand that even in America, I don’t have the same rights that Americans do,” the student said. The Chronicle is not identifying the student because of the risks she could face by speaking out.
The incident drew the attention of journalists and academics who are from China or who work on issues related to China. “I am openly asking you to consider the unique challenges reporters face from authoritarian states,” Jin Ding, a Chinese-born journalist who is chief of staff at the Center for Public Integrity, wrote in a Twitter thread addressed to the Yale editors. She pointed out that mainstream publications such as The New York Times and The Washington Post have granted anonymity to reporters at political or security risk.
Plans for a vigil in solidarity with protests in China began to circulate among Yale students on WeChat, the Chinese social-media app. Unusually widespread demonstrations broke out in China after 10 people were killed last month in a residential fire in the Xinjiang region, home to the country’s Uyghur Muslim minority, raising questions about whether Covid lockdowns had prevented victims from fleeing or rescuers from reaching them.
The student, who has written for the Yale paper since she enrolled, pitched coverage of the vigil to her editors. Even before the protest, held on November 28, she and the other student journalist had raised concerns about being publicly identified. Although the editors said they did not want to publish anonymous articles, the students thought they might be able to find a workaround, such as writing the article under another reporter’s byline or using a pseudonym.
But after they filed the article, the editors said they would not publish the piece without the students’ names. They gave the reporters two choices: Kill the article or hand over their notes to another reporter, who would report out the piece. But the student said she did not want to do that because no other student journalist at Yale has her expertise on issues involving China.
She withdrew the article and shared it on the online-publishing platform Telegraph. “Even though it’s the best story I’ve written so far, I didn’t want to publish it under my byline,” the student said. “I couldn’t do that to my family.”
In a column, the public editor of the Yale Daily News defended the decision not to publish anonymously as meeting journalistic standards, but said editors should “identify ways to better support reporters covering matters of personal significance without threatening their safety.”
The Chinese student said the editors had failed to understand the risks associated with being a Chinese student journalist — or even just a Chinese student. She said she frequently worries that what she says or writes on campus could be reported and endanger her or her parents at home.
With some 300,000 Chinese students in the United States, there are real concerns that Chinese surveillance and political censorship could be reaching into American classrooms. In February the Chinese Students and Scholars Association at George Washington University called on administrators to investigate and punish fellow students who had hung posters critical of the Chinese government. In 2020 a Chinese student was sentenced to six months in prison for tweets disparaging Chinese leaders he had posted while studying at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
Some academics and human-rights groups have called for American colleges to enact policies to safeguard the rights of international students from China and other authoritarian countries, such as appointing a university ombudsman to whom threats, harassment, or surveillance on campus could be reported.
But the Yale student, who dreams of being an investigative reporter, said she was skeptical that American colleges could do much to allay her concerns. “As Chinese students in America, we constantly face a choice: Speak up and risk your family, or stay silent and cry in your room.”
In a commentary in The China Project, an online publication on China news, a group of Yale students from mainland China and Hong Kong said that the Yale Daily News should “prioritize journalistic voices from reporters more familiar with China and make strict policies to protect the safety of their reporters and informants.”
Meanwhile, in an open letter, Chinese students urged colleges to do more to provide mental-health and academic support to Chinese and Uyghur students amid the protests and political turmoil at home.
