DENVER — Regis Jesuit High School calls the changing of an article on its website at the request of the Chinese government an error in judgement and hopes to use the situation as a teaching moment.
The high school in Aurora applied for “consultative status” with the United Nations (UN) so that students could accept opportunities to work with the organization. Particularly, Regis knew it wanted students participate in the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women next year.
After applying, the UN Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) emailed Regis, asking them to change an article on the school's website that referenced Taiwan.
The article, posted in July 2020, congratulated a student for being named to the teen advisory board of the international Girl Up initiative, a program under the umbrella of the United Nations Foundation. As this program includes girls from around the world, Regis High School’s announcement included a mention of Taiwan.
The email from the NGO committee asked that the year-old article be updated to say Taiwan is a “province of China.” The school complied.
It wasn’t until the Wall Street Journal contacted Regis for an article posted last week that the school learned who made the request – a Chinese delegate to the UN.
"In May 2021, we received an email from the UN Committee on NGOs asking us to align to the United Nations terminology when referring to Taiwan to include 'Province of China,'" Charisse Broderick King, a spokesperson for Regis, said to 9NEWS. "We made the adjustment to the article on our website. We understood the request solely as an ask that we follow UN guidelines. We were unaware that the Chinese delegate to the UN had made the request until a reporter from the Wall Street Journal contacted us."
The island of Taiwan split from mainland China during a civil war in 1949.
China has long wanted Taiwan back under its control.
Regis Jesuit said that after learning about the circumstances, they recognize they made an error.
"As we now have a fuller understanding of the circumstances and reasons behind the request to change this reference, we recognize that we made an error in judgment. We will be using this situation as a teaching and learning experience, both for ourselves as educators and for our students," King said.
The current version of the article does not include references to any countries.
Regis anticipates hearing if they'll be able to attend the UN's Commission on the Status of Women event this fall.
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