A student’s report of racism in an article published by the Ubyssey, the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) student newspaper, was dismissed by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal Aug. 29.
Chen Xu, a third-year UBC student, led the charge, but he said he does not stand alone.
“I talked to a lot of students individually to get their opinion on this case and they all agreed that there should be some legal action,” he said.
The article, published in the Ubyssey March 10, was headlined Going Home: Chinese International Students and Democracy.
Xu said his main issue with the article was the accompanying cartoon of a panda bear wearing a suit overlooking several other students.
The tribunal’s log notes described the cartoon as “distort[ing] images of UBC Chinese students.”
The words “apathy, hostility, inability and fear” were written across the top of the cartoon.
“The language [is] discriminating,” Xu said.
The author of the article, Arno Rosenfeld, who was the Ubyssey features editor for approximately eighteen months, said he was looking for a topic relevant to UBC students.
“Earlier this year UBC hosted the leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile for a lecture and barred his comments from being repeated outside of the lecture,” Rosenfeld said.
“I wondered if this was because the university did not want to offend the Chinese government, as UBC is trying to expand its presence in China and the Chinese government considers the Tibetan government-in-exile a subversive group,” Rosenfeld explained.
“I became curious why the Chinese government cared so much about what western universities do or don’t do related to Tibet—and they care a lot, demonstrated by their declaration that University of Calgary degrees were no longer valid in China after U of C hosted the Dalai Lama,” he said.
Rosenfeld said the article “was premised [on] the political impact of huge numbers of Chinese students studying abroad in western democracies.”
When Xu first read the article, he said he immediately approached the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal about it, rather than the Ubyssey.
Xu said he is not against the newspaper itself at all.
“We are just against that particular article using those four words on the front page,” Xu said.
Rosenfeld said his initial reaction to Xu’s complaint was surprise.
“The reaction to the article was overwhelmingly positive, and as the tribunal’s rejection of the discrimination complaint said, ‘the article appears altogether benign, neutral and sympathetic to a Chinese student’s experience in Canada and the potential challenges.’”
The tribunal’s report noted “Mr. Xu says the article undermined his own dignity and that of other Chinese students to a level amounting to hatred and contempt.”
“However, I note, first, that Mr. Xu’s complaint is filed in a personal and not representative capacity,” it stated.
The report goes on to say “Mr. Xu does not provide any evidence or explanation, beyond his personal beliefs and own feelings, of how the article, from the objective standpoint of an aware person, exposes Chinese students to hatred and contempt.”
