INTERNATIONAL HOUSE AT UCSD PRESENTS GLOBAL FORUM WEBINAR MAY 19 ON FREE SPEECH SUPPRESSION

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East County News Service

May 18, 2021 (San Diego) – The International House at the University of California, San Diego will present a global forum webinar titled “Campus Free Speech in the Shadow of Foreign Governments: China/Hong Kong and Israel/Palestine. The forum will be held on Wednesday, May 19 at 6:30 p.m.  

Register at  https://tinyurl.com/CampusFreeSpeech5-19 

According to the organization’s flyer, “foreign governments are suppressing student and faculty free speech at UCSD and other campuses around the country.  tudents, identified only by organization for their protection, will describe the chilling effects on their abilities to speak freely at campus events or in classes, the consequences they and their peers have experienced, and the impacts on student organizations.  The Forum will also address what UCSD is doing to protect student and faculty freedom of speech, and whether it can do more.

This Global Forum will address two specific instances of interference with student and faculty free speech at UCSD:  China/Hong Kong and Israel/Palestine.  Faculty experts will explain the geopolitical background for these conflicts, and efforts by government as well as nongovernmental actors to pressure university faculty and students to suppress free and open discussion of these conflict situations. 

Speaker Bios

Gary Fields is a professor in the Department of Communications.  His research is situated in the field of historical geography and focuses on conflicts over land, and how landscapes are representations of power.  His most recent  book, Enclosure:  Palestinian Landscapes in a Historical Mirror (University of California Press, 2017), compares the fragmented and partitioned landscape in Palestine to the landscapes of dispossession during the early modern enclosures in England and the Anglo-American colonial frontier.  

Kwai Ng is a professor in the Department of Sociology.  His research interests include legal institutions, legal language, and culture.  His most recent book, Embedded Courts – Judicial Decision Making in China (Cambridge University Press, 2017, coauthored with Xin He), analyzes how Chinese grassroots courts operate in a precarious environment where the use of law is often negotiated.  Ng worked as a journalist in Hong Kong before becoming an academic.  He was a political reporter for Hong Kong Economic Journal, Hong Kong Standard, and South China Morning Post.

James Rauch is a professor in the Department of Economics, a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Guggenheim Fellow.  His research emphasizes how non-market interactions influence market outcomes.  His most recent book is The Economics of the Middle East:  A Comparative Approach (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Victor Shih is the Ho Miu Lam Chair in China and Pacific Relations and associate professor of political science at the School of Global Policy and Strategy.  He is an expert on the politics of Chinese banking policies, fiscal policies, and exchange rate, as well as the elite politics of China.  His most recent book, Economic Shocks and Authoritarian Stability, was published by the University of Michigan Press. 

UCSD Hong Kong Cultural Society:  The Hong Kong Cultural Society was established in 2019, after the outbreak of a series of protests against the passing of the extradition bill in Hong Kong.  Their aim is to raise UCSD students’ awareness of the political events happening in Hong Kong and to advocate democracy, freedom, and justice for Hong Kong by providing an encouraging platform for reasonable discussions on current events.  Besides politics, they have also organized events to promote Hong Kong and Canton’s unique culture such as food, language, and entertainment to UCSD students.  facebook.com/ucsdhkcsinstagram.com/ucsdhkcs/

Students for Justice in Palestine UCSD:  Part and parcel of the larger student movement sweeping university campuses across the world, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, and community members centered at UCSD and organized in accordance with democratic principles to promote justice, human rights, and the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people.  facebook.com/sjpucsd

 

Contact info:  Doris Bittar 619 787-8505doris.bittar@gmail.com; James Rauch 619 787-8024jrauch@ucsd.edu


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