A University of Hong Kong student group called Campus TV posted a video on Facebook earlier this week that immediately drew strong condemnation over its hateful content aimed at students from the Chinese mainland. Described as a “parody” of the official HKU video welcoming students from the mainland, it uses derogatory references to belittle mainland compatriots and qualifies as a brazen betrayal of the core values of not only HKU but Hong Kong society as well. The HKU administration has rightly slammed the shameful act in an official statement and demanded a public apology. But it has more to do to prevent the recurrence of similar episodes in the future.

HKU is not only the oldest institution of higher learning in Hong Kong but also has been the highest placed one among Hong Kong-based education institutions on more than one authoritative world-university ranking for decades. However, its academic prestige has been seriously tarnished in recent years by out-of-control campus politics, perpetuated by both educators and students who harbor political or ideological bigotry against the mainland.

The latest anti-mainland stunt is another episode that attests to the continued existence of such bigotry at HKU, reflective of Hong Kong society. The episode indicates that political and ideological bigotry hasn’t vanished along with the dissipation of the yearlong anti-extradition-bill campaign. It is not even in hibernation. Rather, it remains vibrant and will rear its ugly head whenever there is a chance.

The university management condemned the video’s producers, whose narratives about their mainland compatriots are “particularly offensive, hurtful, insensitive and unfair”. It is not hard at all for any thinking person to see that the anti-mainland narratives of the video were born of sheer ignorance — something no decent institution of learning at any level would like to be associated with. Ignorance in this case is not caused by a deficiency of intelligence — it is caused by political and ideological prejudice.

The political fanatics who are behind this scandal might have cheated themselves into believing that they are not Chinese but members of another ethnic group. But they have to realize they will never be fully accepted by the “superior ideology”, no matter how hard they defile their own cultural and ethnic roots. This is evidenced by the fact that people of Chinese origin were discriminated or beaten in Europe as well as in the United States after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.