Academic Freedom, Student Union Discipline, and Free-Expression Controversies

A suspension order, a departure record left by a professor, and a line of white paint that survived seven years on a campus road before being removed — HKUST, a young university known for its strength in science and engineering and traditionally low political visibility, has nonetheless left several marks connected to speech and academic space. This article organises, by theme, several threads supported by public sources: the 2021 disciplining of student union members over a memorial event, the loss of School of Social Science faculty documented by Mr. Holz (Carsten Holz), the overall trajectory of Hong Kong's academic freedom index, the rise and removal of the Frog Road slogan, the student publication Wings, and the current state of HKUST's student union as one of the few that has "stayed on" amid the wave of student union dissolutions among Hong Kong's eight publicly funded universities. Credibility is noted item by item; multiple accounts are placed side by side without adjudication. Passages touching 2019 and the national-security context are, per this site's rules, presented only as a directory of source links, without narrative or chronology.

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# I. Student Union Disciplinary Case (2021)

# Background

In May 2020, the HKUST student union held a memorial event marking six months since the death of an HKUST student who had died in November 2019^※. Around the same time, the student union maintained related campus postings and the slogan "Hope lies with the people, change begins with resistance" on "Frog Road" (see this module's "Landmarks and Lore").

# The Disciplinary Actions

On 25 January 2021, HKUST announced disciplinary action against several student union members^※:

The university also warned that further violations would risk expulsion. At the institutional level, HKUST's student disciplinary process operates under the Regulations for Student Conduct (Regulations for Student Conduct^※), and suspension, community service, and facility bans are all penalty categories listed in that code. The dispute in this case is not over whether the university had the authority to discipline, but over whether characterising a memorial event as a violation, and the severity of the resulting penalty, was appropriate — which is precisely where the parties' positions diverge below.

# The Parties' Positions

According to HKFP, the student union stressed that the memorial event complied with social-distancing rules throughout^※, including temperature checks and the provision of hand sanitiser, and argued that the university's characterisation of the event as a violation under pandemic rules was, in substance, a suppression of free expression.

Scholars at Risk included this case on its academic freedom watch list^※, characterising the disciplinary action as retaliation against protected expression.

RTHK reported that the student union condemned the disciplinary decision^※ and issued a statement defending the legality of the event, describing the penalty as "disproportionate," "extremely regrettable," and "unreasonable."

The university's own publicly stated reasons focused on compliance. As relayed by HKFP, the university's position^※ was that student activities had to follow government regulations and take account of the social conditions at the time; the disciplinary action also concerned the student union's refusal to remove related postings from campus notice boards and campus surfaces as instructed. Placed side by side: the student union frames the dispute as centrally about free expression, while the university frames it in terms of pandemic rules and campus management — the same event, read through two different frameworks. This article places the parties' positions side by side without adjudicating between them.

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# II. Pressure on Academic Freedom: Mr. Holz's Record

Mr. Holz (Carsten Holz), a professor of economics in HKUST's School of Social Science, published two documents between 2021 and 2022 (both publicly posted on his HKUST personal homepage) systematically documenting the state of academic freedom in Hong Kong. The portions concerning HKUST are as follows:

As cited by The Diplomat (January 2022)^※, Mr. Holz's original document^※ records:

• In summer 2021, two School of Social Science colleagues who had repeatedly been named and attacked by state-mouthpiece newspapers (Ta Kung Pao, Wen Wei Po, and others) "suddenly left their positions — or, put another way, departed." Mr. Holz does not name them in the public document but states explicitly that both left Hong Kong after coming under pressure.
• He traces back to 2015, recording that Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po mounted 350 media attacks on a certain University of Hong Kong scholar, which ultimately resulted in that scholar being vetoed for the HKU pro-vice-chancellorship — despite a unanimous recommendation from the selection committee.

# Faculty Attrition in the School of Social Science

According to Mr. Holz's October 2021 document, "Hong Kong's New World of Academia"^※ and his subsequent piece in Times Higher Education^※, HKUST's School of Social Science lost more than half its faculty over a period of just over a year. Mr. Holz states that this wave of departures coincided in timing with the implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong in June 2020, and on that basis, in September 2021, put forward a motion to the School Board to dissolve the School of Humanities and Social Science — on the grounds that "conducting social science research at HKUST is no longer possible." This motion reflects his personal position; there is no record of it being adopted by, or drawing a public response from, the university.

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# III. Placing "Academic Freedom" in Context: Indices and External Reports

Mr. Holz's record is a case-level narrative. To situate HKUST's macro-level position, one can refer to two more systematic external measures — both assess the overall environment across Hong Kong's eight publicly funded institutions rather than HKUST specifically, but HKUST is among them.

The first is the Academic Freedom Index (AFI), compiled by Sweden's V-Dem Institute and other bodies, scored from 0 to 1 and combining multiple dimensions — freedom of research and teaching, freedom of academic exchange and dissemination, institutional autonomy, campus integrity, and freedom of cultural expression — generated statistically from expert scoring across countries; it is among the most widely cited indicators currently used for cross-national comparisons of academic environments. As cited by Hong Kong Free Press in April 2024^※, Hong Kong's academic freedom saw a "substantial" decline between 2013 and 2023, placing it in the bottom 10–20% among 179 countries and territories worldwide; for reference, the global average score over the same period was about 0.569, while Hong Kong's score was about 0.224 in 2023 and about 0.238 in 2024 — the absolute level remains low.

The second is Human Rights Watch's report, released in September 2024, "We Can't Write the Truth Anymore." The report is based on interviews with scholars and students across the eight universities^※, and states that from June 2020 onward, academic freedom and the rights to expression, association, and peaceful assembly at the eight publicly funded universities have seen "serious regression." Drawing on interviewee accounts, the report summarises several recurring phenomena: some scholars reported increased self-censorship in course content and choice of research topics and avoidance of subjects seen as sensitive, certain books were removed from library collections, and students also became more cautious about political discussion in class. These are general observations the report compiled from interviews, not allegations against any named institution or individual. The Hong Kong SAR government issued a rebuttal to the report, stressing that institutions enjoy academic freedom under the law. This passage places both positions side by side without further comment; the detailed context concerning the National Security Law and the post-2019 political environment is, per this site's rules, presented only as a directory of sources — see the Module 18 source directory and the Module 14 2019 source directory. This article does not narrate or place these in chronological order.

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# IV. The "Hope Lies with the People" Slogan (Frog Road)

The campus road leading to UG Hall I is informally known among students as "Frog Road" after someone spray-painted a large frog on its surface in 2014. During the 2019 protest wave, the white-painted line "Hope lies with the people, change begins with resistance" (a Cantonese rendering approximating "Hope lies in the resistance of the people") appeared on this road, becoming one of the most visible symbols of political expression on campus.

According to Dimsum Daily's report of 4 September 2021, the slogan, after remaining in place for about two years, was removed by the university on that date^※, marking the end of this visual symbol; the university's stated reason, as reported, was routine campus cleaning after the resumption of in-person classes. For a fuller account of how Frog Road got its name, the origin of the graffiti (during the 2014 Umbrella Movement), and the slogan's seven-year survival, see this module's Landmarks and Lore.

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# V. Student Media: The Editorial Board and Wings

Under the HKUST student union sits the Editorial Board (EB), the official student media body responsible for publishing and managing student news content.

# Wings: A Publication Older Than the Student Union

The Editorial Board's flagship publication is the student newspaper Wings (振翅). According to Module 14's Student Movement History, Wings's inaugural issue predates the formal founding of the student union — it was published on 2 December 1991, whereas the student union was not established until November 1992; in other words, HKUST had a student newspaper before it had a student union. The publication has been continuously issued by the Editorial Board to this day, and it has partnered with the university library to digitise back issues: the HKUST Digital University Archives maintains a dedicated Wings collection^※, searchable by issue by the public. For researchers, this archive is one of few primary sources that can trace HKUST student opinion continuously across more than three decades.

Official contact channels for the Editorial Board:

# The "UST Connection" Question

The name "UST Connection" occasionally appears in alumni recollections and secondhand accounts, and is often vaguely treated as some kind of student publication or column. However, a review of available primary material finds that its formal status — whether a publication title, a column name, or an external alias used by the Editorial Board during some period — cannot currently be independently verified from any source. This site's approach is to note factually that "this claim exists but its formal identity is unverified," without building any argument on the unverified name, and without equating it with Wings or the Editorial Board itself.

It should be noted that the Editorial Board is itself a standing body within the student union structure, and its operation is bound to the overall state of the parent student union. The student union's difficulties in recent years around membership, finances, and elections (see the next section and the two pieces on elections and membership) are likewise reflected in the publication frequency and staffing of student media — a student union chronically short of people and funding struggles to sustain high-intensity independent reporting. This is not unique to HKUST: as multiple institutions' student unions dissolved or were cut off after 2021, student publications attached to student unions widely faced pressure to suspend publication or pivot; that Wings has been able to keep publishing and complete its digital archive already makes it one of the few surviving student media outlets among its peers.

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# VI. HKUST's Student Union and the Wave of Student Union Dissolutions Among the "Big Eight"

After the National Security Law took effect in 2020, student unions at multiple Hong Kong universities were successively cut off from their parent institutions or dissolved. According to The Diplomat (April 2022)^※, both the Hong Kong University Students' Union (HKUSU) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong Students' Union (CUHKSU) had dissolved, the latter announcing its dissolution in September 2021. City University, the Education University, PolyU, and Baptist University subsequently also cut ties with their respective student unions or stopped collecting membership fees on their behalf, and for a time "which one is next" became a focus of public attention.

According to Wikipedia and verifiable operational information about the HKUST student union^※, the HKUST Students' Union (HKUSTSU) has not been reported as dissolved or formally cut off by the university; its official webpage and social media remain active, making it one of the few student unions that has "stayed on" through this wave of dissolutions.

# By 2026, How Many Are Still "Staying On"

Extending the timeline to mid-2026, when this site was last revised, the picture becomes clearer: among the eight publicly funded institutions, universities where the main student union remains operational are already a minority. According to a May 2025 Hong Kong Free Press report^※, Lingnan University, after a two-year vacancy, elected a new student union cabinet, "Perpetual," in late 2024, but it has not received university support since taking office in March 2025. The pressure has also reached the college level: according to a January 2026 Hong Kong Free Press report^※, several CUHK college student unions successively ceased operating within weeks spanning late 2025 to early 2026. Placing all eight universities into a single table makes HKUST's position clearer at a glance (the table below is compiled from multiple public reports; each institution's situation remains in flux, and the most recent reporting should be treated as authoritative):

The Baptist University student union's initiation of its dissolution process is reported by Hong Kong Free Press^※; the milestones for the other institutions are scattered across the sources cited earlier. By the minimal standard of "whether the main student union is still operating," as of mid-2026 HKUST and Lingnan are among the few of the eight still "in place" — though both come with varying degrees of withdrawn university support and internal contraction.

By comparison, although HKUST's student union has not dissolved, its "staying on" comes with visible hollowing-out — membership has fallen from a peak of roughly four thousand to just over a thousand, the university has stopped collecting membership fees on its behalf, and annual elections have for consecutive years seen only a single cabinet standing. These specific symptoms are treated in dedicated pieces in Module 20 on this site:

• One Cabinet, No Contest: The "Automatic Election" Era of HKUST Student Union Elections
• Cabinet Fees and the Membership Crisis: Deficits, Cabinet Gaps, and a Makeshift Union Room

In other words, the story of the HKUST student union is not a clean-break ending like "dissolution," but a slower pattern: the institution continues to exist in a legal sense while thinning, year by year, at the operational level.

# From "Hard Confrontation" to "Pragmatism"

"Staying on" has also come with a shift in positioning. A 2023 interview by The Collective^※, titled "From Hard Confrontation to Pragmatism," records the account given by the officer interviewed: the student union has shifted its focus from past political statements toward building strength and waiting for the right moment, prioritising concrete work on student rights and day-to-day services. An April 2024 Ming Pao report^※ summed up HKUST's student union situation directly as "the only one among the Big Eight that has never gone without a cabinet," quoting it as saying it would focus on student rights and hopes to attract members. Taken together, the two reports sketch the same pragmatic pivot: under the combined constraints of shrinking external space and tight internal staffing and funding, the student union has chosen to lower its political visibility and direct limited resources toward service work with immediate, visible results. Whether this pivot is an active strategy or a passive adaptation is not read consistently by the interviewees and outside observers quoted in the reporting; this article presents both readings side by side without settling on either.

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# VII. Records of Campus Student Welfare Incidents

The following are incidents publicly reported by Hong Kong media, archived on the basis of public sources, without embellishment or speculation.

# 2024 Campus Incidents (Dimsum Daily)

According to Dimsum Daily, two student fall incidents occurred on the HKUST campus during 2024^※; both involved male students, and both students died after the incidents. One occurred on a pedestrian bridge on campus; the other occurred on a pedestrian bridge beside an undergraduate residence hall zone. The university activated a 24-hour counselling hotline and involved the Student Affairs Office in providing emotional support.

# The University's Support Mechanism: The Counseling and Wellness Center

The standing mechanism the university relies on after such cases is the Counseling and Wellness Center. It is not a temporary emergency arrangement but a long-running student support department, providing individual counselling, Special Educational Needs (SEN) support, a 24-hour helpline, and a range of preventive activities. According to HKUST's Sustainability Office SDG-3 (Good Health and Well-Being) progress page^※, in the 2022/23 academic year the centre provided more than 5,000 counselling and SEN sessions, held about 130 wellness activities, and reached roughly 7,400 university members. The centre also launched a "Peer Ambassadors" programme in 2023, using peer support as one intervention for building psychological resilience.

Pulling back the frame, both the individual cases and the support mechanism sit within a larger backdrop. A 2025 study tracking the mental health of Hong Kong university students over 5.5 years^※ found that, spanning the period before and after COVID-19, depression and anxiety indicators among local university students showed an overall upward trend — this structural pressure is not unique to HKUST but a challenge broadly faced by higher education in Hong Kong and elsewhere. HKUST's fall incidents and the high usage of its counselling centre are a concrete projection of this macro picture within one research university. This site's principle for handling such incidents is: archive only the facts as publicly reported, list available support resources, and neither speculate on causes nor probe into the identities of those involved.

Mental health resources:

• The Samaritan Befrienders Hong Kong 24-hour hotline: 2389 2222
• Suicide Prevention Services (Lifeline) 24-hour hotline: 2382 0000
• HKUST Counseling and Wellness Center: https://counsel.hkust.edu.hk/ (24-hour helpline available)

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