If Huixiang Chen had been an American graduate student, you wouldn’t be reading this.

20 months ago Huxiang Chen, a University of Florida PhD student at the cusp of graduation, committed suicide. Every suicide is a tragedy, but Huixiang’s death left a shocking wake of abuse and research misconduct allegations. His suicide note claims that his advisor threatened him and pressured him into publishing false research. The note also claims his advisor used his personal relationship with the reviewers to subvert the peer review process.

Until last month, no action had been taken against any of these allegations. However an investigation commissioned by ACM SIGARCH recently substantiated large parts of the claims. As a result of the investigation, the research organization levied a 15-year ban from publishing in any ACM venue -- the most serious penalty ever imposed by the organization.

Nothing will bring back Huixiang. However, it’s imperative to learn from what happened. Foreign graduate students are especially vulnerable to abuse from their advisors. Some even think that abuse should be expected. The allegations surrounding Huixiang’s death were largely the backdrop of other media coverage [1][2][3], although recently [1][2] the story has resurfaced. Up through now, The University of Florida has demonstrated little concern for addressing these allegations transparently.

We -- students, alumni, and friends of the University of Florida -- react to these low standards for student safety with repulsion.

Despite his ban from publishing research, Huxiang’s advisor Dr. Tao Li continues to receive his $150k+ salary, with no comment from the University of Florida.

Originally, ACM SIGARCH, the organization Huixiang submitted his paper to, believed that the University of Florida would take the lead in the investigation:

“It is our understanding that the University of Florida administration is currently investigating this case. ACM SIGARCH and IEEE TCCA will follow our respective processes to assist with this investigation.”

However, unlike SIGARCH, who openly paid tribute to Huixiang and published the process and results of their investigation publicly [1][2][3], the University of Florida has been strikingly silent. The lack of communication is summarized in this article: “A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture” published by Huixiang Voice, the original whistleblower, on Medium. It's worth noting that by the time that article was published, Dr. Tao Li had already been suspended internally; although he continues to receive his salary from UF.

We believe the University of Florida ignored potential injustice because it was convenient. 

• Despite likely having access to Huixiang’s suicide note, it took over 2 weeks, in addition to prodding from a graduate student labor union, before the administration announced their investigation into the allegations.
• For 20 months, the University of Florida has failed to provide any update on their investigation into the suicide of Huixiang Chen and his allegations of abuse and academic misconduct.
• Although UF suspended Tao Li with pay a week after the results of the ACM SIGARCH investigation were announced, it's unclear whether the University ever took its own internal investigation seriously.

We accept the reality that the University of Florida administration has incomplete information.

Any investigation into the suicide might not yield a conclusive result. However, we demand that the University hold itself to a higher standard than it has done so far. The allegations were credible in the beginning, and they are even more credible now. 

What’s not acceptable is silence. We don’t know if the investigation even happened.

We ask the University of Florida to acknowledge the seriousness of what happened, and we remain open to any innocent explanation for the outside perception of indifference. The University should be transparent and proactive about communicating the results of their investigation, even if the only result is that there is no result. Only then will we have confidence that the situation is being treated with the gravity that it deserves. 

Until we have confidence that the administration will prioritize student safety over its own embarrassment, we will cease all contributions to the University of Florida endowment.

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For a crowdsourced collection of resources, including a timeline of events and media coverage, please see this link