The president of George Washington University walked back on comments that a series of posters criticizing the Chinese government were offensive Monday after he previously vowed to find the person who put up the posters.
Mark Wrighton, the president of the Washington, D.C., university, issued a statement Monday seemingly apologizing for comments he made last week in which he denounced posters connecting the Beijing Winter Olympics to human rights abuses by the Chinese government.
“Last week, the university learned of posters on campus depicting images that alarmed some members of our community, and we began to receive a number of concerns through official university reporting channels that cited bias and racism against the Chinese community,” Wrighton said Monday. “I also received an email directly from a student who expressed concerns.”
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“At that time, and without more context on the origin or intent of the posters, I responded hastily to the student, writing that I, too, was concerned,” he continued. “University staff also responded to ensure the posters were removed. These responses were mistakes. Every member of the GW community should feel welcome and supported, but I should have taken more time to understand the entire situation before commenting.”
In his initial statement, screenshots of which circulated online, Wrighton said that he was “personally offended by the posters” and said the school was “working to have all of these offensive posters removed as soon as possible.” The university president reportedly also said, “I treasure the opportunity to work with talented people from all over the world, including China,” and added, “I, too, am saddened by this terrible event, and we will undertake an effort to determine who is responsible.”
The posters were of drawings made by Badiucao, a dissident Chinese artist, who published a screenshot of Wrighton’s initial email and demanded “an explanation why exposing CCP’s abuse offends him.”
The artist’s posters took aim at Chinese human rights abuses in the context of the Beijing Olympics. The 2022 Winter Games have been dubbed the “Genocide Olympics” by critics who believe the competition should not be held in a country responsible for a host of human rights abuses, including mistreatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority.
Badiucao said the posters only attracted controversy after the George Washington University Chinese Students and Scholars Association claimed the posters were racist.
“It is misleading & ignorant to call my art ‘anti-China’ or ‘racist’ giving fact I am Chinese artist,” the artist wrote on Twitter. “The smear campaign from CCP affiliated groups like this directly harms #FreeSpeech in [universities] … [GWU] must protest & defend rights of its students to voice out for human rights.”
3/ it is misleading & ignorant to call my art “anti-China” or “racist” giving fact I am Chinese artist
The smear campaign from CCP affiliated groups like this directly harms #FreeSpeech in uni @GWtweets must protest & defend rights of its students to voice out for human rights. pic.twitter.com/PgRyc9VwtO— 巴丢草 Badiucao?? (@badiucao) February 5, 2022
“The central ideas expressed are not based on indisputable opinions but, on the contrary, on highly controversial political disputes,” the school’s Chinese Cultural Association wrote online over the weekend. “In American society, freedom of political expression is everyone’s right, but inciting racial hatred and ethnic conflicts is not allowed regardless of national borders.”
The CCA added, “The school accepted the complaint from the students and stated that the school police would be instructed to investigate the incident. A person in charge of the school’s multicultural office expressed regret that this harmful and offensive poster was posted on the school. The principal also responded to the incident, saying that the content of these posters also offended him.”
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A number of Republicans had hammered George Washington University’s response to the controversy prior to Wrighton’s Monday statement.
“Many American universities are enthusiastic agents for China’s censorship efforts in America,” Republican Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted. “For example, GW University just ordered posters criticizing China’s human rights record removed & the schools President said he was ‘personally offended’ by them.”
GOP Rep. Vicky Hartzler asked, “Why is this American university bowing down to the CCP?”
Wrighton said Monday that he was initially unaware of the origins of the posters and that “upon full understanding, I do not view these posters as racist; they are political statements.”
“There is no university investigation underway, and the university will not take any action against the students who displayed the posters,” he said. “I want to be very clear: I support freedom of speech—even when it offends people—and creative art is a valued way to communicate on important societal issues.”
The Chinese Communist Party-linked Confucius Institutes have been collapsing on campuses across the United States, largely thanks to pressure from the Trump administration and growing concern within the U.S. government about the challenge posed by Chinese influence at U.S. colleges and universities.
George Washington University shut down its Confucius Institute last summer.
