Officials at the University of Washington have taken steps to ensure that students attending a speech and “dialogue” with the Dalai Lama on Monday will not ask him questions relating to Tibetan autonomy or China’s crackdown on unrest in Tibet.
But university officials said that they were not censoring student input; rather, they are ensuring that questions stick to the topics the Tibetan spiritual and cultural leader wishes to discuss, and that the event remains a dignified academic occasion.
Nor, officials said, are they bowing to pressure from Chinese students at the campus, who sought assurances this week that the visit would raise “no political agenda.”
In fact, said a university spokesman, Mark A. Emmert, the university’s president, earlier this month rebuffed requests from the Chinese consul general in San Francisco that the university not serve as host to the Dalai Lama at any event.
The Tibetan’s visit here comes at a time of international protest against China’s actions against protesters in Tibet and of interruptions to the passage of the Olympic torch through many countries en route to the summer Olympic Games in Beijing.
The Dalai Lama will visit the campus as part of a five-day trip to Seattle organized by a nonprofit organization, Seeds of Compassion. The group’s organizers asked university officials whether they would accommodate the Dalai Lama’s wish to engage in a dialogue with college students on the theme of his visit to the United States: the nurturing of compassion.
University officials said they would, and they gained the approval of the institution’s Board of Regents to confer an honorary doctorate of humane letters on him. He will speak for about 40 minutes to an anticipated 7,000 people, then answer students’ questions.
To ensure an orderly and dignified dialogue at a full-regalia ceremony on the campus, said Norman G. Arkans, the university spokesman, university officials opted to use an online submission form to field questions from students from all the state’s colleges and universities.
The campus Office of Student Services selected questions with a view to treating the issue of compassion, he said. It did not select any questions about Tibetan independence and Tibet’s relationship with China but rather chose to leave it up to the Dalai Lama himself to broach those subjects if he wished.
“Our event is not about current politics,” Mr. Arkans said. “It is part of the Seeds of Compassion initiative. It is our understanding that he’s coming to talk about that initiative.”
Ultimately, however, he said, “if the Dalai Lama wants to talk about China and Tibet, he is going to talk about China and Tibet.”
The spiritual leader’s visit prompted the Chinese Students and Scholars Association of the University of Washington to send a letter this week to campus officials expressing “serious concern” that the convocation and dialogue would be political in nature, might condone violent actions by protesters in Tibet, and would not “show respect” to China’s “own domestic issues.”
The letter, which closely echoed official Chinese government stances, stated: “While Dalai Lama has claimed that he does not approve such violence, he failed to condemn any crimes carried out by Tibetan separatists.”
After a meeting with Mr. Emmert and Ed Taylor, the university’s vice provost for undergraduate academic affairs, the group said in a posting on its Web site that it did get such assurances.
The university’s decision on how to marshal the events has provoked little, if any, other consternation on campus.
Any accusation of censorship “rings false,” said David B. Brown, who is president of the University of Washington Graduate & Professional Student Senate and a third-year law student. He took part in the university’s planning meetings, which also included officials from other sponsoring organizations and the Diplomatic Security Service, an arm of the U.S. Department of State.
He echoed the explanations offered by Mr. Arkans and added that organizers had to take into consideration such issues as the security of the event. Student leaders had been consulted from the inception of the event’s planning, he said.
University officials selected 15 questions from about 50 submitted, Mr. Brown said. Appropriateness was decided according to a consensus of all organizers, including an official representative of the Dalai Lama, “about what would be most effective for the objectives of the afternoon,” he said.
