So Samantha H feels lied to because her parents wanted her to join a university that would encourage freedom of expression. What a pity - a very intelligent woman who needs to rely on her parents to make her life decisions.
In any case, Yale came to Singapore with eyes opened. Singapore is a business city and its success is premised on stability. Liberal Arts and dreamy students trying to create a democratic utopia don't have a place here. If these people think Singapore is bad, try Saudi Arabia, US's best friend.
Prospective Singapore students for new Yale campus angry at “contradictions”
Mariam Yuan | 22 July 2012 | 0 Comments
Yale University in Singapore facing massive criticism over new campus.
SINGAPORE: These recent high school students were excited about potentially studying at Yale University’s new Singapore campus. Now, however, they are angry and frustrated at the American university’s decision to crackdown on protests on campus.
“I just feel we have been lied to,” said British-Singaporean Samantha H., who told Bikyamasr.com that her parents would rather see her study in the UK as a result. “They don’t want me at a university that seems to care more about the money involved than students’ rights and freedom of expression,” she added.
For many, the idea that students at Yale University would be barred from holding any sort of protest on campus, is a deal breaker. They argued that when the school announced it would open in the city, eagerness awaited. But now, that optimism has turned to antagonism, and calls for the school to remain away.
“I just wish Yale would go away because we all were thinking it would be a way to start developing our society into a progressive one that allows protests and dissent,” argued Thomas Yang, who will enter his first year of university at Northwestern University’s Qatar campus in the fall. He had wanted to attend Yale in Singapore, but decided against it because “they are not maintaining what makes the university great. It’s students do not seem the most important.”
New students will academic freedom but won’t be able to stage protests on campus, Yale officials have said recently as the controversy continues to hit on nerves.
Human rights organizations have lashed out at the Connecticut-based school, calling on the university to maintain its academic and campus integrity, which allows students to hold demonstrations on campus.
“Yale entered its partnership with the National University of Singapore in full awareness that national laws concerning freedom of expression would place constraints on the civic and political behavior of students and faculty,” Yale University President Richard Levin said in a statement issued last Thursday.
Levin said academic freedom and open inquiry on campus would be protected, as would the freedom to publish in academic literature. But students and faculty would have to observe national laws “as do students and faculty in Yale programs from London to Beijing.”
But it has done little to dispel the animosity the school is facing in a country that has promised to open up its streets for political demonstrations in recent years.
Students remain frustrated, but will be unlikely to derail a large number of prospective students from taking to the new classrooms.
BM
