Faculty of National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
Senior Executive Vice President Hwung-Hweng Hwung
Dean of College of Liberal Arts, Chang Ming-Chen
Dean of College of Social Sciences Chih-Chin Ho
Dean of College of Management Yu-Hern Chang
Dean of College of Planning and Design Feng-Tyan Lin
Dean of College of Engineering Wen-Tung Wu
Dean of College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Yonhua Tzeng
Dean of College of Science Andy Ying-Guey Fuh
Dean of College of Medicine Chyi-Her Lin
Dean of College of Bioscience and Biotechnology Hong-Hwa Chen
Associate Vice President of R&D Yung-nane Yang
Banyan Forum
Scholars at Risk
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Humanistic Education Foundation
Ministry of Education
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Purdue University President
THE WASHINGTON CENTER FOR
INTERNSHIPS AND ACADEMIC SEMINARS
Temple University
Colorado State University
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Case Western Reserve University
University of Kentucky
5 August 2010
I recently came across an article in National Cheng Kung University's Research Express (Volume 12, Issue 9; February 26, 2010, online at http://research.ncku.edu.tw/re/commentary/e/20100226/1.html).
The author, Professor Chih-Chieh Chou, on NCKU's faculty, begins by lauding Human Rights Day, 2009, citing "the Universal Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights," then adding,
From now on, the citizens can resort to the articles of the Covenants to plea for compensation once they assume their rights and interests are deprived through laws violating the Covenants, which makes Taiwan the only Chinese society with comprehensive human rights framework around the globe. Such accomplishment is way ahead of China while they celebrate their 60th anniversary and brag about their wealth and strong national defense power (p. 1). (My emphasis.)
Professor Chou refers "to the protection and installation of civilian economic and social rights." He lists "practical rights issues," and concludes, contrasting China and Taiwan, that "Taiwan’s only competitive edge in interaction is the prevalent installation of these humanitarian values. Taiwan should seize the opportunity to demonstrate our Chinese human rights experience and its content to the international community!" (my emphasis).
I applaud Professor Chou's concern over human rights in China. But I'm curious why he is so concerned about enforcing human rights in China when there are egregious human rights at our own university that need enforcement.
As a professor at our university, Professor Chou may be aware that in 1999 I was illegally dismissed from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at our very university, which, based on Professor Chou's article, is presumably enlightened about human rights, at least more so than Mainland China. Despite such enlightened human rights awareness, a secret letter was circulated at several "oversight" committees, presumably to insure my dismissal when it became apparent the original accusations against me were invalid. I should add I wasn't even aware of those accusations until after the dismissal hearing, and then only by hearsay.
My dismissal, egregiously in violation of basic human rights protections, nonetheless repeatedly passed all "oversight" committees at our university. For obvious reasons it was overturned by the Ministry of Education on appeal in a ruling dated 8 January 2001. In pedagogic style, the ruling highlighted human rights abuses, presumably to insure NCKU officials would not repeat the same mistakes.
However at our university even a legal Ministry ruling is not sufficient to guarantee human rights enforcement. A naive professor like myself might ask, then what is the purpose of a Ministry appeal? I have no idea how our colleagues would answer that question if they felt compelled to.
Subsequently, university president, Kao Chiang, refused to enforce that Ministry ruling for nearly two and a half years (attachment), even after an international human rights group, Scholars at Risk, queried him about the delay (see attachments). Only after repeated pressure from the Ministry of Education (attachment) did the university finally comply with a legal Ministry ruling. Even then the university tried to impose penalties against me, despite the Ministry ruling; as if I never won the case.
However, before the university finally complied it argued foreign faculty are not protected by the Teacher's Law. Hence, even after the dismissal action against me was canceled, in December, 1999 after an eight-month delay (I remind you, I had to renew a tourist visa every two months), I was informed I had to be "reviewed" again, since the case was now being treated not as a firing action but as a hiring action.
Can you follow the logic here? American professors, you see, are not protected by the Teacher's Law (the same law that protects Taiwanese professors) or the principle of equality under the law that protected Taiwanese when they matriculated at American universities to insure high-paying jobs or teaching positions at NCKU and other ranked universities.
The university actually went to court to argue its position, apparently unconcerned about public relations; yet NCKU has been called the fourth-ranked university in Taiwan and has academic exchanges with numerous US universities, such as Purdue.
Now NCKU university held appeal hearings here. The university also sent representatives to appeal hearings at the Ministry of Education in Taipei. At no time did the university argue Americans had no right to appeal. It would have been against the law as it's understood here anyway, although NCKU officials have a different understanding of the law (attachment).
But I'm arguing fundamental honesty now, not law. Because after I won the Ministry of Education appeal the university then argued that, as a foreign teacher, I had no right to appeal in the first place.
How is it possible for the university to hold appeal hearings, and even attend them in Taiwan, if, indeed, I had no right to appeal in the first place? This argument would be rejected in an American court based on the legal principle known as estoppel. I quote Wikipedia here:
Estoppel in its broadest sense is a legal term referring to a series of legal and equitable doctrines that preclude "a person from denying or asserting anything to the contrary of that which has, in contemplation of law, been established as the truth, either by the acts of judicial or legislative officers, or by his own deed, acts, or representations, either express or implied."
But this is a legal principle. There's the moral principle whose violation is more audacious, since one does not expect officials of a university commonly called a prestige university in Taiwan to behave in such a duplicitous manner, more like children in a school yard who want to win a fight by whatever means than as accredited professors and honorable officials, especially since many professors here were accredited in the United States and were treated equitably while matriculated at universities or teaching there.
I have opened a web site on my case. But in the meantime it worries me that everytime someone googles for "human rights" and "Taiwan" they will find, not details about egregious human rights violations at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, but the words of the aforementioned article pleading to "Make Human Rights Work in Mainland China through Cross-Strait Dialogue."
With all due respect to the author of this article, isn't it of more immediate concern to make sure that human rights work in Taiwan, specifically at our own university, first?
I should add that the editorial staff of Research Express includes our current university president, Michael M. C. Lai, Senior Executive Vice President Da Hsuan Feng, Senior Executive Vice President Hwung-Hweng Hwung, and several College Deans (check the editorial staff here). Yet I have repeatedly petitioned President Lai and other officials here to resolve this outstanding human rights case, to no avail.
Indeed, recently, on August 1, NCKU president, Dr. Lai, planted a tree at National Quemoy University (here). That was just the time when a colleague and I repeated out request for a meeting with the administration to end this decade-long human rights issue.
In the article on NCKU's web page, President Lai is quoted as saying, “National Cheng Kung University has received support from Purdue University, United States, and thus become one of the top universities today. Following the same method, NCKU will contribute to the development of National Quemoy University and fulfill its social responsibilities.”
Frankly, a university fulfills its social responsibilities by enforcing human rights, not by planting trees, symbolic or otherwise. The fruit of democracy should be human rights, not a tree.
Nor are these issues limited to a university. Tax-paid money should be used to insure human rights, not to insure their nonenforcement. As a public institution, NCKU used public money, in one form or another, to fight a case that had absolutely no legal merit, at least based on international human rights principles. People don't pay taxes to retard the future of Taiwan but to insure its future, which can only be based on human rights, moral principles, and enforcement of legal rulings without equivocation or delay.
It is bad enough for a university to violate human rights, but even worse when that same university has no channels for remedy of abuses once they occur, or acknowledge them when they occur. As one of my attachments show, even NCKU students had the sense to recognize human rights violations when they were exposed early in this case, ten years ago. Yet our officials apparently do not recognize this.
With numerous exchanges in the United States and other democracies, National Cheng Kung University can no longer function as a rogue institution, unwilling to abide by international principles of human rights and human rights enforcement.
I will give my colleagues the benefit of the doubt and assume those not directly involved in my illegal dismissal or in the obstruction of the Ministry ruling in my favor are "good" men and women. But by doing nothing about this case, the evidence of which is fully documented (and only partly represented in my attachments) my colleagues are not insuring (to quote from the article) "the protection and installation of civilian economic and social rights" in Taiwan.
To paraphrase the final line of this essay, I modestly ask that my colleagues "seize the opportunity to demonstrate our Chinese human rights experience and its content to the international community!" by enforcing human rights at our university. This can be done by insuring a formal apology and compensation from National Cheng Kung University over its human rights abuses in my illegal dismissal case. If human rights can't be enforced here they certainly won't be enforced in Mainland China.
I am insured certain rights according to international human rights charters, several of which Taiwan subscribes to, and I will not be denied those rights no matter how stubbornly National Cheng Kung University officials obstruct their enforcement. If I have no legal options in Taiwan, I believe I have legal options in the US, which I plan to exercise until this case is resolved by international standards of human rights and reciprocity.
Sincerely,
Richard de Canio
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
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