Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University, published an opinion piece on Washington Post, titled “No, I won’t start spying on my foreign-born students“, in response to heightened pressure on academic research, joining a growing list of other institutions making similar statements. The content is reposted here.

The FBI has stepped up its scrutiny of research practices at college and university campuses — including mine.

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies determined to thwart the illegal transfer of intellectual property to foreign rivals are encouraging U.S. academics and administrators to develop more robust protocols for monitoring foreign-born students and visiting scholars — particularly if they are ethnically Chinese.

With students returning to campus, these policing attempts thrust economic and political concerns into fierce conflict with First Amendment freedoms.

To be sure, government-funded academic research in such national security realms as cybersecurity and bioterrorism is justifiably sensitive. Likewise, academic research conducted in collaboration with U.S. companies — a principal target of most unlawful technology transfers — leads to commercial innovations that warrant protections. Universities have an obligation to comply with existing security protocols, identify sensible ways to bolster them, and cooperate fully with law enforcement authorities and corporate research partners if clear acts of espionage are suspected. To the extent we are falling short in any of these areas — and yes, there have been isolated incidents of academics sharing sensitive intellectual property with foreign governments — we can and must do better.

At the same time, however, only a fraction of the research conducted on campus is “secret.” Indeed, the reality is just the opposite. Academic research is intended to be shared — released into the public domain to advance human progress. Groundbreaking medical discoveries, agricultural innovations credited with saving billions of people worldwide from starvation, the Internet, artificial intelligence: All are the result of publicly available, university-based research.

Consequently, a foreign national need not fly halfway around the world to “infiltrate” our great universities and learn about our latest insights and findings: With some notable exceptions,she can type words into a search engine and peruse peer-reviewed academic journals from the comfort of an office or dorm room overseas. Or, similarly, she can visit the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s website, where applications for patent protection provide detailed descriptions of recent innovations.

And so, most worrisome to me, as someone who has spent five decades advocating freedom of expression and assembly, is the notion that university personnel — and perhaps students themselves — should be asked to monitor the movements of foreign-born students and colleagues. This is antithetical to who we are.

The mission of a university is to foster an open atmosphere conducive to speculation, experimentation and creation. American higher education is the envy of the world not in spite of, but because of, its unrivaled commitment to openness and diversity. Attracting — and welcoming — the brightest minds in the world, regardless of nationality or country of origin, is what we’re all about.

To put it another way, the U.S. university model is a strategic advantage, not a hindrance to American competitiveness. Our administrators, professors and research scholars are not, and should not become, an arm of U.S. law enforcement. Ironically, what the FBI apparently considers our great vulnerability is, in my view, our greatest strength.

At Columbia University, where I am president, thousands of students and faculty represent more than 150 countries. We stewards of major research universities couldn’t contain intellectual freedom even if we wanted to. The incompatibility of university culture with systematic scrutiny may explain why even law enforcement officials who have visited our campus have offered little prescriptive guidance, instead offering that we should be vigilant.

The unauthorized use of intellectual property by overseas competitors is a serious problem. But the surveillance of foreign-born scholars in this country is the wrong solution. If law enforcement agencies have legitimate concerns, it seems to me that they should identify and monitor those they designate as “suspicious people” based on real threats, not broad worries about entire nationalities.

A more effective approach — advocated by many of my colleagues in higher education as well as the bipartisan Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property — is to expand the number of green cards awarded to foreign-born graduates of our great colleges and universities. Many of these international scholars, especially in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, would, if permitted, prefer to remain in the United States and work for U.S.-based companies after graduation, where they could also contribute to the United States’ economic growth and prosperity. But under the present rules, when their academic studies are completed, we make it difficult for them to stay. They return to their countries with the extraordinary knowledge they acquired here, which can inform future commercial strategies deployed against U.S. competitors.

The mandate of our colleges and universities is to pursue open, robust inquiry across a wide range of topics. Our institutions of higher learning should do more — not less — of what made the United States the most innovative nation in the history of the world.

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Repost from UW-Madison OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR website: UW’S RELATIONSHIP WITH CHINA.

The U.S. and China need each other. We need each other as trading partners; we need each other as major world leaders. And our universities need each other.

As we count down the final days of summer and get ready for another academic year, let me tell you about my most interesting trip of the summer.

In late May, I had the honor of leading a delegation to China. While not my first trip to that country, it was my first trip as UW chancellor.

Why visit at a time when the geopolitical relationship between the countries is strained? Quite simply, UW and China need each other more than ever and can learn much from one another.

On the May trip, multiple groups from campus, including the International Division, the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association, International Student Services and several of our schools and colleges, participated in various aspects of the trip to help make it a success.

It was a busy itinerary, including meeting with our alumni, welcoming incoming Chinese students and their families to UW, attending conferences organized by UW faculty at Chinese universities, meeting with higher education leaders, and conducting industry-partnership conversations.

By way of background, you might know that UW’s history with China goes back more than 100 years. A century ago, we were the top public university (and 4th largest overall) recipient of Chinese students enrolling in American universities through the “Boxer Indemnity” scholarship fund, the main route at that time for Chinese students to attend college in the U.S.

Forty years ago, then-Chancellor Irving Shain was the among first American university presidents to visit China after it re-opened to the outside.

Today, we have 3,200 students from mainland China studying at UW. They comprise the largest group of international students at UW. Between 2000 and 2018, their share increased from 25% of all international students to 55%.

We welcome these students and scholars to Madison and do everything we can to support them and help them to be successful. Their presence on campus enriches the residential experience of all of our students.

Big, public research institutions like UW that educate thousands of students and conduct groundbreaking research have to have a global reach if we’re going to carry out our mission. Unlike in past decades, this relationship has become increasingly bilateral. Our scientists are collaborating with Chinese scientists. While there are still far more Chinese students coming to UW, increasing numbers of our U.S. students are interested in going to China. Our faculty are organizing international conferences in China with colleagues from that country – and vice versa. During my recent visit, a conference on higher education organized by a UW faculty member in collaboration with Peking University allowed me to address colleagues in China. All of these connections create new opportunities for all involved.

We need to be smart and respectful in all of our international collaborations. Full transparency and disclosure will benefit all partners and everyone involved in collaborative research projects.

The strategic partnership agreement that we signed with Nanjing University is particularly significant. We have a long-shared history of cooperation with Nanjing – this is the campus that made the most significant impression on Chancellor Shain in 1979.

In signing our most recent agreement, UW-Madison and Nanjing are seeking linkages across disciplines that can have a lasting and positive global impact. This lays the foundation for an expanded relationship featuring many more years of research collaboration and student exchange.

We also are collaborators in nine active research partnerships with Chinese universities, including a project that brings our wildlife biologists together with ones at Peking University to understand the impact of development on the Asiatic Black Bear population.

Our faculty talk about the two-way nature of their work with Chinese counterparts. As Chinese universities expand in size and quality, and as top scholars work in China, we now meet as full partners and potential collaborators with much to gain on both sides.

Collaborations can create the potential for economic development, with six current industry projects located in China, including a $2.5 million project with Nestle to develop and run a dairy farming institute.

There is growing concern about security issues with China, particularly around intellectual property. We need to be smart and respectful in all of our international collaborations. Full transparency and disclosure will benefit all partners and everyone involved in collaborative research projects.

But I am proud of the number of scholars at UW – both US citizens and citizens of other countries – who have ties to China, and I support the work that they do.

The U.S. and China need each other. We need each other as trading partners; we need each other as major world leaders. And our universities need each other. We can learn more working together than working in silos.

As long as we both share a commitment to open inquiry, outstanding education, and sharing knowledge and discoveries in a way that improves people’s lives, we can work together.