Testimony of jeffrey s. Lehman vice chancellor of nyu shanghai



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TESTIMONY OF JEFFREY S. LEHMAN 

 

VICE CHANCELLOR OF NYU SHANGHAI 

 

BEFORE  

THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON  

AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS 

OF 

THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

OF 

THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

At a Hearing on the Subject: 

 

 

“Is Academic Freedom Threatened  

by China

’s Influence on U.S. Universities?” 

June 25, 2015 

 

 

 

 


 

 

Chairman Smith and Members of the Subcommittee, I thank you for the 



opportunity to testify this morning about the opportunities that are created when an 

American research university develops a strong presence in China.

 

 

My name is Jeffrey Lehman, and I am testifying in my capacity as the vice 



chancellor of NYU Shanghai.  NYU Shanghai has just completed its second year of 

activity as the third degree-granting campus of New York University.   

 

I shall begin by describing my own experiences over the past seven years leading 



academic institutions inside China that are committed to principles of academic freedom. 

I will then provide a brief overview of NYU Shanghai.  In the most extensive part of my 

testimony, I will discuss the reasons why a great research university like New York 

University would accept the challenge of creating a degree-granting campus in Shanghai.   

Next, I will address some of the concerns voiced by those who believe it is inappropriate 

for American universities to teach and conduct research in China.  Finally, I will discuss 

one way that the United States government can be of assistance in this regard.

 

 



I.    My  Personal  Background  in  China  

 

Before coming to NYU, I served as a law clerk to Judge Frank Coffin at the U.S. 



Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and to Justice John Paul Stevens at the Supreme 

Court, as a tax lawyer here in Washington, as a professor of law and public policy at the 

University of Michigan, as the dean of the University of Michigan Law School, as the 

president of Cornell University, as a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International 

Center for Scholars.

 

 



I moved to China in 2008, because the president and vice president of Peking 

University asked me to help them found a new law school as part of that university, the 

School of Transnational Law (“STL”).  STL would teach law in the American style, 

using the Socratic method to study U.S. law, Chinese law, and international law, in a 

program that would lead both to a traditional J.D. degree and to a Chinese J.M. degree.  

This was to be the newest element in China’s effort to carry out small experiments with 

approaches to higher education that are different from the approaches generally used at 

Chinese universities.

 

 

I resisted the idea at first, as I was not a student of China, I did not speak any 



Chinese, and I was unfamiliar with the operations of a Chinese university.  Eventually, 

however, I decided to take on the project, significantly at the urging of Justice Anthony 

Kennedy of our Supreme Court, and of the Chairman of the C.V. Starr Foundation, Hank 

Greenberg, each of whom stressed my patriotic duties as an American to help the rule of 

law continue to develop in China.  I accepted Peking University

’s request, but only on the 

conditions that I would have absolute control over the school’s curriculum, faculty, 

teaching style, and operations, and that I would receive an ironclad guarantee that I could 

operate the school according to the principles of academic freedom that were 



 

2  


fundamental to my own experience of higher education throughout my career in the 

United States.  

 

 

Those conditions were fully honored during my time at STL.  Students took 



classes with leading law professors from Harvard and Stanford and Michigan and 

Virginia, and a former senior lawyer at the U.S. State Department.  They studied 

American constitutional principles with Mark Rosenbaum, the legal director of the 

American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, and learned about international 

criminal and human rights tribunals from Mike Greco, past president of the American Bar 

Association and Chair of the Advisory Council of the ABA Center for Human Rights.   

 

 

I had the privilege of serving as a member of the United States delegation to the 



U.S.-China Legal Experts Dialogue in 2011 and again in 2012, and of discussing my 

experiences with our students at STL. Later in 2012, I took on the responsibilities of 

being the founding vice chancellor of NYU Shanghai.   

 

II.    An  Overview  of  NYU  Shanghai  



 

NYU Shanghai is a unique institution.   

 

On the one hand, it is a full, degree-granting campus of New York University.  



All degrees are awarded by the trustees of New York University, in full compliance with 

the accreditation requirements of the Middle States Association.  On the other hand, it is, 

like STL, also part of the effort inside China to carry out small experiments with 

approaches to higher education that are different from the approaches generally used at 

Chinese universities, legally chartered as the first Sino-American Joint Venture 

University.   

 

The creation of NYU Shanghai followed a similar pattern to that involved in the 



creation of STL.  NYU agreed to participate on the conditions that it would have absolute 

control over the school’s curriculum, faculty, teaching style, and operations, and that it 

would receive an ironclad guarantee that it could operate the school according to the 

fundamental principles of academic freedom.  NYU also required that the school operate 

in compliance with a 14-point statement of labor values.  

 

As vice chancellor, I am charged with running the university’s academic and 



academic support operations.  I serve at the pleasure of the president of New York 

University.  Because the graduates of NYU Shanghai will receive NYU degrees, NYU 

has exclusive and final responsibility over faculty appointments, curriculum, student 

admissions, etcetera. 

 

 

We have structured our school so that half the undergraduates come from China, 



and half come from the rest of the world.  Every Chinese student has a non-Chinese 


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