"If those students can be identified..." It sounds from the statement that they don't know who they are at this point. This sounds to me like an initial statement before a full investigation has completed. I would also say that for the rights of other students, there should be some kind of fair process to ensure that the accused are fairly treated.

The student has stated (on reddit) that he has identities and proof at ready for police and/or the university.

Also it’s what they would say if they wanted to look like they were taking a hard stance while having an out to avoid actually doing anything concrete or with consequences.

Only time will tell what actually is done.

Why do they need proof of being a foreign entity? Just the intimidation should get them expelled.

Because the most intimidating part is arranging a secret police visit to his parents.

Students arguing politics, even if uncivil, isn't something you want to be "no tolerance" about. There are lines though, and this is one.

Anyone who;s attended a western university has seen how ... emotional? the politcals can get. I think this is probably a good thing, so it's tough to determine when the line is crossed. It sounds like it was definitely crossed here but it's still a tough minefield to navigate.

There seems to be a large or loud group who stoke their emotions, but not their rationality .. its like the blood drains from their head when their heart gets fired up

Emotions are good, but excessive emotions without deep understanding is something very different.

Emotions are fine - sending the secret police to a parent's home - not fine and the student should be expelled.

It also sounds like they’d need proof they colluded with a foreign entity which is a very high bar.

> Those seeking to deny those rights to others

I'd say harassment falls into this category, so no proof of collusion with the CCP is needed.

If something is harassment or merely exercising their right to express their opinion is also a matter for subjective judgement and he said/she said type finger pointing, and highly dependent on context and frequency (which can be hard to find solid concrete evidence for without a lot of work).

It sounds like some of the students not only threatened to report him to the Chinese authorities, but told him that they had done so, and he has proof who made these threats and claims. They didn’t try to hide it.

If they have a right to do that, is that harassment?

I doubt Purdue (up to now) has any policy saying it’s illegal to report someone to authorities for something they did. Even if those authorities are not popular right now and the thing they did is ok at Perdue but not at home.

Is it a ‘dick move’ and offend our sensibilities? Sure.

But that doesn’t mean it’s any different than if a bunch of folks from the US were at a French university during the 50’s and someone called the FBI telling them that Bob was saying a lot of scary things about communism and just got a Russian Girlfriend and maybe they should look into it.

If it’s true, then of course the FBI is going to look into it. If true, it’s also unlikely to count as harassment. It’s also pretty terrible from 5 different angles.

People have been expelled from universities for videos where they used the N-word. I agree with imposing that consequence (unless it was in the distant past and the student has since shown genuine rehabilitation). Reporting someone to a regime which tortures, kills, and harvests the organs of dissenters is orders of magnitudes worse than using a racist slur.

I agree with you, but the Chinese government doesn’t, and they have a long reach. One we are free to ignore, but others seem hesitant to.

Purdue certainly has policy against harassment. Other students followed and directly harassed, Purdue is not the government so it doesn’t even need to weigh free speech or legality.

> But that doesn’t mean it’s any different than if a bunch of folks from the US were at a French university during the 50’s and someone called the FBI telling them that Bob was saying a lot of scary things about communism and just got a Russian Girlfriend and maybe they should look into it.

I’m sorry, but is this supposed to be a counter point? This kind of behavior would have been ridiculous and unacceptable as well, unless said US citizen had access to state secrets or something of that nature.

^Fully agreed. That period in time is literally referred to as "Red Scare" and is considered to be a massive failure of an initiative based solely on fearmongering.

And yes, it is taught this way even in semi-rural high schools in southern US states as well (I attended a high school like that myself in GA about 10 years ago). It's like saying "well, US did the whole Trail of Tears thing centuries ago, so we can do a soft-genocide in 2021 as well with Uyghurs".

That type of an argument doesn't sound convincing in the eyes of anyone who doesn't already support what China is doing or some very vocal radical left minority (aka tankies and adjacent groups) in the west. For an example of the latter, just check r/sino, it feels like reading into some parallel universe.

I agree with you, though I will caveat that by noting that, as an american, we tend to amplify the faults of our enemies and downplay those of our Allie’s and ourselves. I am by no means a China apologist but the rhetoric between the US and China over the last several years in concerning to me. It feels like people are looking to make everything in this relationship in a good vs evil narrative, no matter which camp you’re in.

What is happening to the Uighurs is easy for me to point out as crossing the line. But something like Hong Kong? As a westerner I was to support democracy and self determination, but by the same token, Hong Kong is indisputably part of china’s sovereign territory and it seems like a lot of people in the US think it’s ok to promote separatism in another country just because it shares our values. Why don’t I ever hear anyone apply that to our allies? ( cough cough Saudi cough)

I find myself sympathetic to the talkie rhetoric not because I believe in communism, but because I grew up in a generation that was lied into the Iraq war, and see similarities with the mind of nationalism that swept the country in the early 2000s. America never really atoned for abu ghraib, gitmo, cia black sites, signature strikes etc. and to me that is way more relevant to anything that we did in the 19th century.

reflexively I am just repulsed by the nationalistic rhetoric on these issues.

> If they have a right to do that, is that harassment?

You can harass someone with legal activity, making it illegal. If I show up outside your house everyday and stand on the sidewalk with a concealed weapon that is obviously illegal harassment. Standing on the sidewalk might be legal, carrying a concealed weapon may be legal, harassing someone with either is not.

> But that doesn’t mean it’s any different than if a bunch of folks from the US were at a French university during the 50’s and someone called the FBI telling them that Bob was saying a lot of scary things about communism and just got a Russian Girlfriend and maybe they should look into it.

You're right. This is something we will all need to worry about in the event that we time Travel to the 50's. When that happens, I'll criticize the US government, and encourage the French university to expel the American students. I guess we will need to settle for dealing with today's problems until time travel is possible :(

> If it’s true, then of course the FBI is going to look into it. If true, it’s also unlikely to count as harassment. It’s also pretty terrible from 5 different angles.

Why? I think your false assumption here is that everything the university should care about, the FBI should care about to, which is simply not true. You can outright break the law and the FBI not care depending on the law. I don't know that this falls into the category of things the FBI would deal with.

Interestingly enough, in most of your examples you are wrong - legally.

And you seem to be rather completely misreading my comment.

I’m not saying anything that the CCP, the students, or the university is doing is RIGHT.

I’m saying it happens, and it happens a lot, and it’s happened here in the US recently, and it’s not as illegal or clearly stoppable as people here seem to think.

So watch your ass, anyone that thinks that some moral right to speak truth is going to save you without some serious planning or thinking ahead (like the student who spoke out) - because you may very well be a martyr for a cause you did not plan to.

Because I’m one of those who likes to speak out, and I’ve almost been steamrolled by something before. So watch your ass.

> Interestingly enough, in most of your examples you are wrong - legally.

Care to point out which?

> I’m saying it happens, and it happens a lot, and it’s happened here in the US recently, and it’s not as illegal or clearly stoppable as people here seem to think.

Harassment is clearly illegal. It has a legal definition and everything. That being said, it is hard to prove, which is where the complications actually lay. In this case, it seems like there is plenty of evidence though.

> So watch your ass, anyone that thinks that some moral right to speak truth is going to save you without some serious planning or thinking ahead (like the student who spoke out) - because you may very well be a martyr for a cause you did not plan to.

I don't see where this fits into the conversation. Are you saying people shouldn't speak out? Are you saying reporting harassment to the police is bad?

> Because I’m one of those who likes to speak out, and I’ve almost been steamrolled by something before. So watch your ass.

That's pretty vague.

> If they have a right to do that, is that harassment?

Yes. Having the right to say or do something doesn't mean it isn't harassment. But more importantly, the 'students' making these reports/threats are acting as agents of the CCP, projecting the CCP's power into an American university, and should be ejected from the country for that. What they were doing was espionage.

Read my comment above - I’m warning people that they’re being naive if they think it’s as clear cut as they think or this student isn’t pretty screwed for many reasons, regardless of how the rest of this turns out.

Even a public university can decide what they want to do when it comes to punishment for students they admit. You aren't owed an explanation no matter how much you pretend on the internet to care.

A public university has to respect the constitutional rights of it's students though. So there would be very strong legal protection for pro China students.

Edit: actually not sure if they are foreign nationals. Maybe someone knows if same applies?

国有国法 家有家规

The issue is of harassment and continued education at Purdue; not constitutional rights. It sounds like the pro China students were harassing Zhihao Kong. Purdue can decide what constitute harassment. 100% it's part of of every contract the student signs and agrees to as a part of their acceptance.

People have no problem bending the rules to punish people swiftly if it benefits them. It is only when it would be painful to do the right thing that people insist on their legal limitations.

The student's citizenship makes no difference legally when it comes to First Amendment privileges.

> constitutional rights

This is a false statement. The only regulation here is title VI and title IX. The administration of a public university is not legally part of the government.

> The administration of a public university is not legally part of the government.

Nope, you are wrong. There have literally been supreme court cases about free speech rights of students.

And yes, the supreme court has found that it is possible for a public school to break the 1st amendment rights of students.

At the end of the day, it's a stretch to assume the students did anything other than wield their rights to free speech on an American (or other western) campus. Anti CCP activities, on campus or elsewhere in west makes it way through PRC media bubbles with of millions of eyeballs willing to do the dirty work, frequently within PRC soil. All it takes is for a post to trend. Freedom of speech in west =/= freedom from consequences, which applies even less in PRC.

What's nonsensical are the allegations that politically engaged pro-PRC/CCP Chinese national students must be state agents. And the disproportionate media attention it gets in the west whenever there's diaspora drama between PRC students and HK/Tibet etc. CCP doesn't need to instruct nationalists to behave like nationalists. Rich Chinese kids with social media are playing the same cancel culture game against the out-group and that just happens to be aligned/exploitable for PRC censorship.

There’s no assuming going on. These students explicitly threatened reporting him to the Chinese government, and did so using their registered accounts in online chat so we know exactly who it was.

That's called an allegation, an assumption. And alleging students said some dumb shit is different than proving collusion with PRC gov unless Purdue can dig up files from PRC MSS. In the meantime, the parsimonious answer is kids playing with PRC cancel culture, because to my knowledge there hasn't been a single proven allegation of PRC kids directly reporting other PRC nationals on western campus. Plenty of yellow journalism alleging collusion from the last few years, but zero expulsions despite China Initiative cracking down on campus harder than ever. That should tell you something. If anything I hope Kong / Purdue hits up the proper authorities and finally get some clarity on the extends of the issue other than non-stop news cycle weasel allegations. IMO the likely outcome is dumb kids trigger cancel culture drama over social media, and again free speech =/= freedom from consequences in other jurisdictions.

Two giant paragraphs that are largely irrelevant as well as inaccurate. Purdue has a framework to work with to adjudicate situations regarding the student experience. We will see how it plays out. Your emotional response to some trigger doesn't have anything to do with what is being discussed.

The students followed and threatened, that’s harassment. Even if it was legal, the campus can still expel them if it violates their standards. The campus is not bound by the first amendment, as it is not the government.

>Rich Chinese kids with social media are playing the same cancel culture game against the out-group and that just happens to be aligned/exploitable for PRC censorship.

So? It's a crappy game and we should stop letting them play it. Making up accusations of being a CIA agent is not better than making up accusations of being a PLA agent.

> it's a stretch to assume the students did anything other

No, because at least one (edit: two!) incidents like this has already repeatedly happened elsewhere. Chinese students sabotaged a panel at Brandeis University about Uyghurs ("Viewers interrupted a Harvard-educated lawyer as she tried to describe her brother’s plight in a concentration camp, scrawling “bullshit” and “fake news” over his face on the screen and blaring China’s national anthem." - which is pretty clearly harassment), and an Emerson College student was subjected to doxxing and death threats[2]. Given these incidents, and that the university president released a letter about this (so it's not just an unverified social media post), the reasonable assumption is that the students did engage in harassment.

Moreover, yes, students in a foreign country reporting an incident legal in that country to their repressive home government is definitely "collusion".

> Freedom of speech in west =/= freedom from consequences

Um, no, that's incorrect. "Freedom of speech" means that you have the ability to express the opinions that you want to without consequences, by definition (the two components of freedom of speech are the ability to express opinions and the protection from "consequences" (which is a misleading way to say "active retribution") of that expression).

In the United States incarnation, the First Amendment is a specific instance of a law protecting freedom of speech that prevents the federal government from punishing you from saying what you want, modulo a few edge cases (most of which aren't restrictions on freedom of speech/expression so much as restrictions on particular utterances (e.g. yelling "fire" in a crowded theater) or knowledge (disseminating classified information)).

But, beyond the government (which is the only entity that the First Amendment applies to), other organizations or individuals can take pro-free-speech or anti-free-speech positions, which (again) means freedom from consequences due to that speech.

The CCP here is clearly taking an anti-free-speech position by threatening the student through his parents due to an opinion that he has expressed about Tianamen Square.

> Rich Chinese kids with social media are playing the same cancel culture game

Also completely false. "Cancel culture" means that you're attacked by the culture specifically, which includes just about everything except the government.

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/even-on-us-campuses-china...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29593320

> e.g. yelling "fire" in a crowded theater

The legal argument behind that concept isn't that "yelling fire in a crowded theater" is about the particular utterance but that it was a metaphor for the government's legal ability to restrict free-speech when it presents a "clear and present danger".

The legal case where the metaphor was introduced was a unanimous decision allow charging some under the espionage act for pamphleteering against the draft in WWI. It considered among the worst Supreme Court decisions, has been partially overturned and is an odd example to reference when arguing that these "edge-cases" don't amount to real restrictions on speech. This particular "edge-case" decision upheld the criminal prosecution of anti-war activists for their speech.

Harassment on US soil, sure. That's under US perview and should be addressed by relevant US instruments. But freedom from consequences in a foreign jurisdiction? Besides being legally wrong, that's peak American exceptionalism. CCP is allowed to take anti-freespeech position on PRC soil, even triggered by incidents on foreign soil, that's PRC law (and HK NSL). They're not bound by US free speech, by design. PRC cancel culture involves flesh search and generating enough attention to warrant government action. Fixating on US definitions doesn't magically absolve the fact that there are consequences occurring on PRC soil according to PRC rules outside of US/host country purview.