Letter to NCKU president

1
12 December 2003

Dear Professor Kao,

I have repeatedly advised you about human rights violations at our
university. These rights violations would be
acknowledged by almost any jurist or rights advocate in law-abiding
countries.
In 1999, university officials held secret hearings, made unproved
accusations, and circulated a secret letter to effect my
dismissal from the university. For reasons that should be obvious to
anyone, the Ministry of Education Appeals Committee
canceled that dismissal in a ruling dated 8 January 2001.
You defied that ruling for more than two years, despite eight
warning letters. In my country, this is called obstruction
of justice, subject to serious legal penalties, certainly including
dismissal from office but probably also involving criminal
charges.
Determined to effect my dismissal, despite the Ministry ruling,
your administration then filed a lawsuit to insure this. Your
lawyer didn't mention in his first brief to the court that I had won a
Ministry ruling. Then he argued, despite the Ministry
ruling, that, as a foreigner, I had no right to appeal in the first
place.
Where in the world would a lawyer argue that an appellant had no
right to appeal after the appeal process is over?
Under repeated pressure from the Ministry of Education, and
realizing that compliance was inevitable, two university
officials attempted to "extort" a settlement whereby I would agree to
resign from the university and receive half pay, despite
the fact that I had won a legal Ministry ruling; which, in Taiwan and
international law, means immediate reinstatement
with full compensation.
Finally concluding it had no choice but to accept the principle of
law, your administration complied with the ruling around
May, 2003. Yet shortly thereafter, another university hearing was held
repeating accusations rejected in the Ministry
ruling, dated 8 January 2003.
If accusations rejected on appeal can be revived, then appeals are
pointless. Why would an appellant file an appeal
if the same accusations could be repeated even after winning the
appeal? In law, once a formal ruling is made following
formal accusations, then those accusations can never be revived. If
they could be revived, the appeal process would
serve no purpose. Indeed, it would be more sensible to suffer injustice
once than be subject to it repeatedly.
Apart from the Ministry ruling, our own university appeals
committee rejected this latest action your
administration took in May. But a review committee simply ignored that
university appeals ruling, even though the
university appeals committee is the highest committee at our university.

Is a review committee a law to itself? This latest ruling by our
university review committee is completely
unacceptable. Not only is it in violation of the Ministry ruling of 8
January 2001, repeating accusations rejected in that
Ministry ruling, but the review decision includes a monetary and
professional penalty, denying me annual increments and a
right to promotion for six years. Ironically, following the illegal
four-year interruption to my career, caused by legal rights
violations at our university, promotion should be part of the "full
compensation" insured by law and legal rights
charters.
Yet in addition to the outrageous legal violations listed above,
the university continues to contest my right to full
compensation for the four-year illegal dimissal period, claiming that
since I wasn't teaching during that time I should be
denied teaching pay.
Where in the world would a university argue that following an
illegal dismissal action, the appellant is not
entitled to full compensation? Laws in all countries that observe legal
rights, as well as international charters of human
rights, insure full compensation, as well as protections against double
jeopardy following formal rulings. If your legal
counsel's reasoning was correct, then professors could always be
punished by illegally dismissing them, knowing that even
when reinstated they would still lose half pay for the period of their
dismissal.
Finally, the student who wrote a malicious letter that was secretly
circulated at my dismissal hearings has still not been
punished or even formally reprimanded, although she is currently both a
graduate student and a part-time teacher at our
university. Yet I am committed to receving a formal apology from this
student and an admission that what she did was
wrong.
I remind you yet again that this case will not be closed until all
issues are formally resolved by our administration,
including full compensation, promotion to full professorship, censure of
that student, and a formal apology from the university
administration. Regarding individual apologies from officials involved,
I refer to a remark made by Confucius, that gentlemen
admit their mistakes.
In conclusion, I am committed to defending the rights of American
professors at our university, whatever I have to do to
effect this goal.

Sincerely,

Professor Richard de Canio
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan