A former Tsinghua University lecturer has mounted a legal challenge against his past employer over a dismissal that he claims was in fact political harassment.

Wu Qiang, who used to work in the university’s department of politics, is alleging a job contract breach that dates back to 2015. That year, Tsinghua unilaterally ended his contract without serving him with a termination notice, he told Apple Daily.

During the next six years, Wu said, he was unable to teach, although he could still do academic research and was free to enter the campus.

That changed in the beginning of 2021, when he officially received a dismissal notice and could no longer set foot in the premises.

Wu said he believed that Tsinghua’s handling of the dismissal did not conform with his employment contract and was fundamentally about political persecution. Wu is known for trying to travel to Hong Kong in 2014 to conduct a field study of protests during the Umbrella Movement. In response, the school dispatched security guards to confine him to his home, and later to his office.

In February this year, Wu applied to the government to arbitrate the row. He was notified in early June that his application was rejected. Wu then applied on Tuesday to take his case to Beijing Haidian District Court and make a claim for compensation.

The scholar said that he expected the lawsuit to be a long-drawn-out battle and he would hire a lawyer who specialized in labor disputes.

Wu holds a PhD in political science from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. He was hired by the politics department at Tsinghua in 2009 and became one of the first academics to offer courses in theories behind social movements. This choice of topic earned him pressure from the authorities, who monitored his field research and issued warnings before ultimately removing him in 2015.

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