Tokyo Hosei University
Hosei University
Tokyo Japan
Hosei University (法政大学, Hōsei daigaku?) is a private university based in Tokyo, Japan.
The university originated in a school of law, Tōkyō Hōgakusha (東京法学社, i.e. Tokyo company of law), established in 1880, and the following year renamed Tōkyō Hōgakkō (東京法学校, i.e. Tokyo school of law). This was from 1883 headed by Dr. Gustave Emile Boissonade, and was heavily influenced by the French legal tradition. It merged in 1889 with a school of French studies, Tōkyō Futsugakkō (東京仏学校, i.e. Tokyo French school), that had been founded three years earlier. It adopted the name Hosei University (法政大学, Hōsei daigaku, i.e. Tokyo university of law and politics) in 1903 and was recognized as a private university in 1920.
Other notable figures involved in its foundation include Dr. Masaaki Tomii, and Dr. Ume Kenjirō, “Father of the Japanese Civil Code”.
Hosei has three main campuses, which it calls Ichigaya, Koganei, and Tama. The Ichigaya campus is halfway between Ichigaya and Iidabashi stations in central Tokyo; its 26-story Boissonade Tower, completed in 2000, can be seen from either station. The campus has a city flavour but is still somewhat isolated from central Tokyo; the nearby presence of Yasukuni Shrine also contributes.
Sciences are studied at the Koganei campus to the west of Tokyo, and other subjects are split between Tama, which is near Hachiōji, and Ichigaya.
A June 2009 article by David McNeill in the Japan Times reported that since 2006 the administrators of the Ichigaya campus of Hosei had been involved in series of violent confrontations and arbitrary actions against activists representing the Japan Revolutionary Communist League and one of the organizations calling itself Zengakuren. According to the activists, the actions had included beating and detaining student protesters by campus security guards, expulsions, and posting student’s names on bulletin boards and internet sites.
The activists claim that the university’s reaction to student protests and activism has been excessively heavy-handed and that innocent student bystanders have been swept up in the university’s suppression. The University has not commented publicly on the issue, but states on its website that the crackdown was in response to disruption caused by the activists at the Ichigaya campus, including interference with teaching, assault and verbal threats against university staff members. After an anonymous letter to the Japan Times disputed McNeill’s summary and the claims by the activists that this included, McNeill said that 13 Hosei University students had been arrested during the conflict, with nine indicted and awaiting trial on charges ranging from trespassing to obstruction of law enforcement.
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