George Washington University President Condemns Anti-China Artwork, Then Reverses Course

A troubling episode of hypersensitivity and illiberal impulses at a university in the nation's capital over critiques of China.

Last week, a controversy started brewing at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. after posters appeared on campus depicting the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) human rights abuses in light of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing:

巴丢草 Badiucao💉💉 @badiucao

1/ @GWtweets George Washington University Chinese Students and Scholars Association (GWUCSSA) is launching a witch-hunt to the student activists puting my boycott #beijing2022  posters in campus. A classic smear campaign to cancel criticism against CCP via calling it “racism”.

巴丢草 Badiucao💉💉 @badiucao

2/ The collection posted in @GWtweets includes 5 posters depicting CCP’s 1. Oppression of the Tibetans 2. Uyghur genocide 3. The dismantling of HK democracy 4. The regime’s omnipresent surveillance systems 5. lack of transparency surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

These posters generated outrage from the GWU Chinese Students and Scholars Association (GWUCSSA), calling the artwork “anti-China” and “racist” even though the artist, Badiucao, is Chinese-Australian.  

Then, on Sunday, GWU’s president issued a statement saying that he was “personally offended by the posters” and that the school was “working to have all these offensive posters removed as soon as possible.”

巴丢草 Badiucao💉💉 @badiucao

1. In response to CSSA, GeorgeWashington Uni @GWtweets president @PresWrightonGW claims he is “personally offended” by my art criticising China’s rights abuse like Uyghur genocide & oppression in Tibet & HongKong. I demand him an explanation why exposing CCP’s abuse offends him.

Here’s one aspect about such maneuvers that multiple commentators are beginning to notice: the way CCP-sympathizers use the racial hypersensitivity of elite U.S. institutions against them. These posters, of course, were created by a person of Chinese descent and are targeted at a brutal regime, not a race or ethnicity. But all it took to get the president of an American university to consider censoring expression insulting to the CCP was to frame that expression as an act of racism.

As Badiucao himself put it:

Mary Katharine Ham @mkhammer

I spoke with @badiucao about the complaints about his artwork today: "They [CCP] are very good at kind of using anti-racism as a way to canceling the real criticism against Chinese government. They’re always trying to mix the very idea between people, country, & gov't."

Fortunately, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) swiftly responded to GWU’s illiberal instincts:

FIRE @TheFIREorg

In response to reported efforts to identify who posted flyers depicting @badiucao's artwork at George Washington University:

The next day, GWU’s president backed down, saying he “responded hastily,” adding “[u]pon full understanding, I do not view these posters as racist; they are political statements.”  

Rory O’Connor @rwocon

A welcome change of tune from @PresWrightonGW:

While it’s good to see GWU’s president admit his error and suspend the investigation, it’s troubling that his initial instinct was to censor artwork that was clearly making constitutionally protected political statements about widely known CCP human rights abuses. What’s worse is the implication that if the artwork wasn’t critiquing the Olympics or expressing some other approved viewpoint, the president would be okay with censorship and punishment. As FIRE put it, the president’s “belated positive opinion of the posters’ content should not determine whether students can see it.”

We’ll leave you with this:

AG @AGHamilton29

@mkhammer “Someone complained that they were offended so we immediately issued an apology and agreed to censor the offensive material without knowing what it was” is such a perfect representation of how University administrations work these days.