Yeonmi Park, a 27-year-old who escaped from North Korea said that she fears the future of United States students after attending Columbia University. She said that the supposed draconian atmosphere at the university reminded her of the oppressive regime under North Korea supreme leader Kim Jong Un. 

The now US citizen, Yeonmi often speaks about her experience in North Korea and how she and her mother escaped the country when she was 13. 

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Talking about her transfer from a South Korean university to Columbia University, New York, she said that the transition was jarring in an interview with Fox News. 

She compared the thought-policing in North Korea to the culture of political correctness at the university. 

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She told Fox News that the school was not teaching its students how to think but forcing them to think the way they want you to think. “I thought America was different, but I saw so many similarities to what I saw in North Korea that I started worrying”, said Park. 

She cites the example of when she was scolded by a staff member for being interested in Jane Austen’s novels.  

She said “Did you know those writers had a colonial mindset? They were racists and bigots and are subconsciously brainwashing you.”

“North Korea is pretty crazy, but not this crazy”, she quoted while mentioning her interaction with the gender pronouns. 

“English is my third language. I learned it as an adult. I sometimes still say ‘he’ or ‘she’ by mistake, and now they are going to ask me to call them ‘they’?” she said. “How the heck do I incorporate that into my sentences?”. She called the entire situation a chaos and regression in civilization. 

Her experience at Columbia University confirmed her belief that the American students are losing the ability to think critically, a pattern she thought was exclusive to North Korea.