SINGAPORE: For many in Singapore, the ongoing controversy with Yale University's new campus in the country is a debate between business and human rights. Students and young people have lashed out at the university for letting go of its traditions of supporting student activism in favor of money. While Yale has defended its decision to open a campus in Singapore and ban student protests, the move has sparked widespread criticism from human rights organizations. New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said the move is “betraying the spirit of the university as a centre of open debate and protest by giving away the rights of its students at its new Singapore campus." Others argue the new partnership with the National University in Singapore “is another reminder that universities are now primarily profit-run, often multi-national businesses that will fully exploit the opportunities offered by globalization with less thought for the needs of their students.” Prospective students are angry and frustrated at the American university's decision to crackdown on protests on campus. “I just feel we have been lied to," said British-Singaporean Samantha H., who told Bikyamasr.com that her parents would rather see her study in the UK as a result. “They don't want me at a university that seems to care more about the money involved than students' rights and freedom of expression," she added. For many, the idea that students at Yale University would be barred from holding any sort of protest on campus, is a deal breaker. They argued that when the school announced it would open in the city, eagerness awaited. But now, that optimism has turned to antagonism, and calls for the school to remain away. “I just wish Yale would go away because we all were thinking it would be a way to start developing our society into a progressive one that allows protests and dissent," argued Thomas Yang, who will enter his first year of university at Northwestern University's Qatar campus in the fall. He had wanted to attend Yale in Singapore, but decided against it because “they are not maintaining what makes the university great. It's students do not seem the most important." New students will academic freedom but won't be able to stage protests on campus, Yale officials have said recently as the controversy continues to hit on nerves. Human rights organizations have lashed out at the Connecticut-based school, calling on the university to maintain its academic and campus integrity, which allows students to hold demonstrations on campus. “Yale entered its partnership with the National University of Singapore in full awareness that national laws concerning freedom of expression would place constraints on the civic and political behavior of students and faculty," Yale University President Richard Levin said in a statement issued last Thursday. Levin said academic freedom and open inquiry on campus would be protected, as would the freedom to publish in academic literature. But students and faculty would have to observe national laws “as do students and faculty in Yale programs from London to Beijing." But it has done little to dispel the animosity the school is facing in a country that has promised to open up its streets for political demonstrations in recent years. Students remain frustrated, but will be unlikely to derail a large number of prospective students from taking to the new classrooms.
