Chinese students vow to fight penalty for distributing rainbow flags at Tsinghua University
- Women say they were disciplined by student affairs office for leaving 10 rainbow flags, symbols of the LGBT movement, behind campus supermarket counter
- At Peking University, students were called to remove rainbow-coloured masks on International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia
Two female students at China’s prestigious Tsinghua University who were disciplined last week for distributing rainbow flags on campus are petitioning to have the penalty overturned, despite facing a risk of dismissal.
Christine Huang and another student, who did not want to be identified, were issued with warning letters on Friday and Sunday, respectively, by Tsinghua’s student affairs office for distributing unauthorised promotional material on campus.
According to Huang, they left 10 rainbow flags behind the counter of a campus supermarket in mid-May. They were then tracked with the aid of campus surveillance cameras and ordered to have talks with university administrators.
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“We felt that it was necessary to raise the visibility of the rainbow, especially in such a time like this. The rainbow is not just a token,” Huang said.
The disciplinary action, coming after Pride Month in June, is the latest in an intensifying campaign targeting mainland LGBT communities. Last year, the social media accounts of dozens of LGBT student organisations were shut down.
After the talks with student supervisors, the two were accused of violating campus regulations, breaches that could lead to disciplinary action and the possibility of dismissal. Last month, Huang and her co-accused received written warnings and were given five days to respond.
Huang said they presented their defence but heard nothing from the university until last week when they were handed two formal disciplinary warnings stating they caused “a negative impact” with the distribution of unauthorised promotional materials on campus. Huang received a severe warning for documenting the incident on her social media account.
The two students are members of Purple, one of China’s most influential LGBT rights groups led by students from Tsinghua. The group’s social media account on WeChat was shut down in 2019.
Huang said university administrators failed to mention the rainbow flags in their warning letters and they did not explain why the flags were deemed “unauthorised promotional materials”.
“It’s against the school regulations that they left out the relevant facts in the disciplinary decision notice,” Huang said.
The Tsinghua University student affairs office could not be reached for comment.
Darius Longarino, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Centre, said it was “the latest example of how authorities keep pushing the invisible line back, making anything but silence increasingly risky”.
“It creates a powerful chilling effect,” he said.
Tsinghua University is not the only university censoring the rainbow symbol. On May 17, International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, students at Peking University, another prestigious university, were asked by campus security guards and teachers to take down their rainbow-coloured face masks.
A bisexual PKU second-year science major student, who gave her name as Amanda, said students would not get into trouble if they wore rainbow elements on other days of the year.
“The university is particularly sensitive to special events at special times. For example, all gatherings around major festivals and anniversaries will be strictly monitored,” Amanda said.
She said LGBT content, including dating posts, was not taboo on campus except on sensitive dates.
“It is unsurprising that the rainbow element would be targeted as it’s something too iconic and symbolic. The rainbow element is a common symbol used in demonstrations overseas. It’s a symbol of a group in the general sense, and the very presence of such a symbol brings cohesion,” she added.
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Liang Ge, a researcher in gender, sexuality and popular culture at King’s College London, said there was “increasingly stifling censorship and control” and structural discrimination at play in mainland Chinese universities.
Ge said “vague” rules and regulations relied on “interpretation by administrative leaders as to what constitutes acceptable and normal college student behaviour” and that strict control over the expression of the LGBT community “tries to make the queer kids invisible and marginalised”.
Since Xi Jinping took power in late 2012, ideological control over Chinese students has intensified, with the country’s universities viewed as strongholds of the party’s leadership.
Mainland tertiary institutes are ordered to steer clear of Western ideologies, including universal values, press freedom and civil rights, while pledging allegiance to the Communist Party and espousing patriotism and Marxist ideals to students.
Meanwhile, there has been tighter control over civil society in China, and crackdowns on emerging rights movements, liberal intellectuals and organised religions. Lawyers, dissidents and activists, as well as clergy and worshippers, are closely monitored in clampdowns aimed at minimising their social and online presence.
This month, China voted against extending the Mandate of the UN Independent Expert on protection from violence and discrimination related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
