Testimony of jeffrey s. Lehman vice chancellor of nyu shanghai

 

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have also had the opportunity to read Confucius, Mencius, Mozi, Sun Zi, Sima Qian, and 

Mao Zedong.  These are the same readings I would use if I were teaching the course in 

New York.  In Appendix 2 to this testimony, you will find the complete syllabi of this 

course from the first two years in which I taught it. 

 

IV.    NYU  Shanghai  Helps  to  Advance  International  Norms  of  Intellectual  Inquiry  

 

People who care about higher education are very interested in NYU Shanghai.  

We are pioneering a new approach to twenty-first century higher education, and we 

believe that our graduates will be prepared to contribute in entirely new ways to the 

development of a world where people from different cultures can cooperate to address 

challenges and opportunities, and can forestall conflict and misunderstanding.  

 

 

For that reason, we receive a constant stream of visitors to our campus 

– on 

average dozens every week.  If any members of this Subcommittee or their staffs should 

visit China in the future, we would be delighted to welcome them to our campus, so that 

they can have the opportunity to observe, and to speak with our students, our faculty, and 

our administrative staff.  There is simply no substitute for first-hand observation.

 

 

Of course, it is understandable for people who have not been able to visit to 

wonder about what it is like to operate a university like ours inside China.  And I have on 

several occasions encountered suggestions by such people that it is somehow 

inappropriate for NYU to be present in China.

 

 

Such suggestions might be divided into two groups.  The first group includes a 

variety of absolutist

 positions, to the effect that no American university should be present 

in China at all.  One such position alleges that such a presence serves to “legitimate”

 

government practices we do not approve of.  A second such position alleges that 

government practices outside the campus necessarily make it impossible to offer a 

genuine liberal education inside the campus.  A third such position alleges that no 

coherent understanding of academic freedom fails to include unrestricted freedom to 

advocate peacefully in favor of change in the larger society.   

 

A second group of criticisms is more nuanced.  These arguments suggest that, 

although it might be possible to operate a university appropriately inside a society that 

has features of which we disapprove, it would be very easy to go astray in a country like 

China.  Accordingly, they argue that it would be better to stay away entirely than to run 

the risk of error.

 

 

At the end of the day, I do not believe any of these suggestions holds up under 

scrutiny.  

 

 

In the first instance, these positions ignore the benefits of engagement.  Our 

universities are properly sources of enormous pride for America.  They nurture skills and 

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values that help students to be productive citizens, contributors to the well-being of their 

societies.  They nurture an ability to see things from different perspectives.  We are all 

better off if American students have the opportunity to learn about China while studying 

at a university that embraces NYU’s value system. 

 

Significantly, however, American students are not the only ones who stand to 

benefit from NYU Shanghai

’s presence.  China  is  in  the  middle  of  a  period  of  

astonishing  change.    Within  Chinese  society  there  is  heated  debate  about  what  

direction  change  should  take  over  the  next  two  decades,  and  about  what  goals  

should  take  precedence  over  others.    Some  prominent  individuals  are  asserting  that  

China  should  not  draw  inspiration  from  the  values  and  practices  of  universities  

outside  China,  while  others  are  arguing  strongly  in  favor  of  those  same  values  and  

practices.      

 

This  latter  group  will  benefit  if  they  can  point  to  the  positive  impact  of  

schools  like  NYU  Shanghai  on  Chinese  students.    And  since  the  values  and  practices  

of  such  schools  promote  norms  of  mutual  respect  and  understanding  across  

national  borders,  the  entire  world  can  be  said  to  have  a  stake  in  their  success.    

 

I do not believe any of the critiques I have mentioned come close to offsetting 

those benefits.  The more absolutist positions make inaccurate assumptions about the 

relationship between American universities and the larger society.  American universities 

were not established on a firmament of perfect respect for human dignity. Liberal 

education and academic inquiry are not fragile flowers that can survive only in perfect 

soil.  To the contrary, America

’s best universities were established in a flawed land, one 

of whose greatest virtues was its commitment to improvement, to form a more perfect 

union. Precisely because those universities are hardy defenders of academic freedom and 

liberal education, they have been important contributors to America

’s progress. (I 

discussed these issues at length in a speech at Columbia University, a speech that I attach 

as Appendix 3.)  

 

 

The less absolutist positions, however, are more reasonable, and point to a set of 

questions that we take seriously.  A university such as ours cannot function if students 

and faculty are not free to ask questions, and to entertain arguments, that might be 

disruptive and even offensive to others.  The search for understanding must be allowed to 

proceed unimpeded, down blind alleys and unproductive pathways, against the 

headwinds of conventional wisdom and ideological correctness.  Norms of civility may 

be imposed, but they must not cut off genuine and rigorous inquiry.

 

 

At NYU Shanghai we are vigilant in assuring that these principles of academic 

freedom are honored every day.  So far, so good.  But if circumstances were to change 

and those principles were abrogated, NYU Shanghai would have to be closed down.

 

 

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