Across the United States, a student-founded Athenai Institute is taking its fight to the CCP – and winning: From conducting groundbreaking research on financial entanglements of American universities with the Chinese government to urging universities to divest from China, the Athinai Institute newsletter says.
This October, the student association of Georgetown University unanimously voted to reaffirm its call for the university to divest from entities tied to the CCP and the genocide of Uyghurs committed by the Chinese regime.
The Student Council of the University of Virginia became the latest student government to vote in favor of divestment from the CCP and entities complicit in its human rights abuses, joining Georgetown, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, the Catholic University of America, and the University of California-Irvine.
The impact of the Athenai Institute to date:
- 67 Confucius Institutes closed
- 21 state chapters
- Multiple universities investigating their financial entanglements with the CCP
The group of student volunteers includes Rana Amet, a third-year major in Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. As a first-generation Uyghur American, Rana’s interest in political science began in high school when the CCP started its campaign against the Uyghurs, which impacted her family, too. As a result, she has worked closely with other members of the LA Uyghur diaspora.