NYU Shanghai Adds Pro-Communist Class at Chinese Government’s Request

New York University-Shanghai has introduced a pro-communist “civil education” course at the request of the Chinese government. As part of the class students will take trips to visit memorials for those that died defending China’s communist party.

According to a report by Campus Reform, New York University Shanghai has introduced a pro-communist course that sympathizes with the Chinese government. Reports suggest that the Chinese government demanded that NYU Shanghai offer the course.

The course, which is entitled “NYU Shanghai Chinese National Student Civic Education,” includes lessons that explicitly promote China’s version of “socialist culture.” Students in the course will take trips to visit memorials for those that died defending China’s communist party.

Bobby Miller, Vice President of the NYU College Republicans, said in a short comment that he is disappointed that NYU Shanghai has bowed to the demands of China’s Communist Party.

“NYU Shanghai’s shameful capitulation to the Chinese Communist Party’s propagandistic demands is a total betrayal of the university’s pledge that classes would be conducted ‘in accordance with the principles of academic freedom,'” Miller said.

New York University Professor Rebecca Karl, who teaches at the main campus in Manhattan, that she is not surprised at the development because all university students in China are required to take the course.

“I have always suspected—because I’ve never gotten an actual real answer from anybody from Shanghai—that Chinese students have had to take the political class that is required of all Chinese students that go to university in China,” Karl told Vice. “NYU has probably agreed to certain protocols that we don’t know because they won’t disclose them. My suspicion is that they won’t disclose them because they would raise a ruckus.”

Breitbart News has reported extensively on the Confucius Institute, a Chinese-government backed educational organization that has been kicked off several American campuses after it was accused of censoring speech that was critical of the Chinese government.