BEIJING - Chen Guangcheng, the blind legal activist whose headline-grabbing odyssey included an improbable escape from house arrest in China, a mad dash for refuge inside the United States Embassy in Beijing and several rocky months as a visiting scholar at New York University, has found a new job with a conservative research institute in New Jersey. Although Witherspoon will provide Mr. Chen financial support, he will maintain affiliations with the Catholic University of America and the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, a liberal advocacy group named for Representative Tom Lantos, a California Democrat and Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor who died in 2008. Last summer, as news emerged that Mr. Chen might accept a position at Witherspoon, some of his friends expressed concern that an association with a stridently conservative organization might diminish his effectiveness as an advocate for human rights in China. Jerome A. Cohen, a law professor at N.Y.U. who helped shepherd the Chen family through their dizzying first year in the United States, said he was pleased that Mr. Chen would be affiliated with three institutions, but said he was still uncomfortable with his decision to accept a post at Witherspoon.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/world/americas/chinese-activist-joins-conservative-research-group.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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