A new governmental regulation announced this week requiring certain international students to undergo screening before taking weapons production classes likely will not affect Northwestern students, NU officials said Thursday.
The screening board, which probably will see between 1,000 and 2,000 international students a year, would regulate students who want to take such classes that are taught only in the United States. NU does not offer courses that probably would fall under the new executive order, said Richard Morimoto, dean of the Graduate School.
“One advantage we have is we don’t do any research that’s, in a sense, secret research,” Morimoto said. Such research could “have restrictions based on the government or have special funding from one of the military agencies,” he said.
Ravi Shankar, director of the International Office, said the new executive order seemed more targeted than ideas discussed initially. These previous plans would have required international students to be screened for any class that could assist them in weapons production. Such restrictions could have included standard scientific classes such as chemistry and physics.
“Naturally, I’m glad it doesn’t (affect NU students),” Shankar said. “Otherwise, it would become too restrictive.”
University President Henry Bienen blasted the government’s initial proposal at a meeting with other school presidents on April 22 because he said it showed little promise of preventing terrorism. The proposal largely would have affected graduate students, he said.
“(The legislation) will see a huge outcry in the universities because they’ll think it’s a terrible idea and they’ll also think it’s an unpoliceable idea,” Bienen told The Daily on April 25. “Most terrorists have no capacity to take these courses or, if they’re really serious and they’re good physicists, they can take them somewhere else.”
Bienen was unavailable for comment on Thursday.
The premise of creating rules about screening international students for any weapons production course would have had a hard time being implemented at NU, Morimoto said.
“We’d ignore them,” Morimoto said.
The previous idea probably would have caused some of the nation’s top students to leave the country to study elsewhere, he said.
Shankar said the loss of international students would have been a terrible drain for the country, both intellectually and financially. A substantial number of NU’s international students study science, he said.
“When you consider that over 500,000 international students attend school in the United States, they bring in a substantial amount of money,” he said.
This is not the first time the government has tried to infringe on university research, Morimoto said. In the 1970s, the government discussed restricting research on some types of DNA.
Communication between the government and universities helped alleviate concerns, Morimoto said. Administrators still want to be involved in such discussions about international student issues.
“If we sense that there is a situation happening, I have great confidence that scientists and the public will get involved,” he said.
