The chancellor of the University of Helsinki told a newspaper last month that US authorities had pressured the university to remove certain terms from its press release about Fulbright scholarships.
They probably should explain to the Murican government that we in Europe have something called freedom of speech and that governments, and especially foreign governments, do not have the right to censor specific words that happen to offend them.
That feels vaguely like something the US VP recently talked about; sparking much excitement.
This won’t work at all. Try a punch in the face.
Trump: I am an Emperor of Great Again America. The whole world is America. Bring in doughnuts!!! Be amazed by my power.
Hello Mr. President, Fuck off! Yours sincerely, University of Helsinki
If I’m reading the auto-translated Swedish right, it seems like the issue is Finnish universities are advertising the scholarship program for students who want to go learn in the US, and they are using terms that are leading to programs being canceled in the US.
The US counterparts have asked the Finnish Universities to change how things are advertised because they don’t want the program to be shut down since it is important. If I was in their shoes, I would be asking the same thing.
Seems overall upsetting, but not nefarious like this article makes it sound. I don’t think it’s really a moral victory to keep the advertising the way it is, and just have the program cut off; everyone loses. I suppose that since it’s a program to promote cultural exchange, it’s bound to be shut down by the US govt anyway, so maybe it is best to just go down with the ship (not sure if that’s an idiom that translates to finnish).
This kind of thinking is why no one has the spine to fight Trump. “If we don’t compromise our values and adopt fascist ones then we’ll lose the whole program” if a program has to bow to fascism to survive it’s better off dead. This is Trump’s doing NOT a Finish advertisement that’s getting these programs shut down. If you don’t pay the ransom it’s still the kidnapper that killed the victim not you.
I think you are missing my point. The Fulbright program was started by the US that does exchange between the US and other countries, and the cost is shared. The trump administration is cutting funding for anything it disagrees with.
If the University of Helsinki advertises to US students to come to Helsinki to research climate change through this US program, the US just won’t fund it. Likewise if they advertise to Finnish students to go research equitable housing policies at an American university, the US just won’t fund it.
The only people hurt by advertising for people to do Fulbrights on topics the trump administration doesn’t like are the people who want to do that kind of research who will fill out applications that will never be funded. If you are asking people to submit proposals on those topics, you are asking them to waste their time.
Obviously, Finland can (and I really hope they do) fund Americans to study in Finland, and Finns to study in the US, independently of the Fulbright program, but the fulbright program itself is subject to the whims of the US govt.
Yep, as usual a headline is not enough context to actually understand and react to an issue. This sucks but is not the gotcha the headline really wants it to be.
