Letter to Taiwan Ministry of Education

1/29/2004 10:09 AM
Subject: Etc.To: moe
CC: Control Yuan ,
Vice-President Lu ,
eyemail@eyemail.gio.gov.tw, peu03@mail.gio.gov.tw,
ChinaTimes
BCC: louwei.chen@msa.hinet.net,
Ray Dah-tong , Paul

Minister of Education
Department of Higher Education

29 January 2004

Dear Officials,

As agents of the Taiwan government it is your responsibility to
control officials in your universities.
In addition, you must protect faculty who teach at these
universities, the way that Taiwan faculty are protected in other
countries.
The Taiwan government should not allow university officials to
behave as if they were the law rather than agents of the law, like
everyone else. After a Ministry ruling, a university official must
comply at once or be dismissed. Apart from law, no teacher will try to
improve education in Taiwan if he lives in fear that he will be punished
by colleagues for trying to and if he knows that Ministry of Education
officials will not protect his rights.
I remind you that the Ministry of Education held formal hearings on
my case in Taipei (2000). University officials were invited as well as
myself. They were given the same chance as I to make their case, in
fact, a better chance, since they had more power than I. They made the
best case they could but they lost. In law, that should be the end of
it. But these officials want to continue the case, regardless of the
law. This is NOT RIGHT. If this is allowed it is as good as admitting
that there is NO LAW in Taiwan. University officials have already shown
they have no MORAL PRINCIPLES, since even children know enough to "play
fair" and not be "sore losers."
For university officials to ignore a Ministry appeal ruling AFTER I
won disrespects the law as well as moral values; in addition, it wasted
taxpayers' money (millions) that could have been used to pay
scholarships for poor students.
The Ministry of Education talks about improving education in
Taiwan. Those scholarships could have helped education in Taiwan.
In addition, teachers should not have to spend five years defending
their reputation. The rights of university officials do NOT include the
right to abuse their power or their office to injure the reputation of
teachers or to defy national (Taiwan) law.
At the same time, official noncompliance with a legal Ministry
ruling violates a code of ethics as well as the law. You, as agents of
the Ministry of Education, a lawful branch of the Taiwan government,
must do all you can to stop this kind of behavior, including penalties
and dismissal. These officials have discredited our university as well
as themselves. You are required, by law, to prevent these abuses, at
least for the good of the university.
Once again I appeal to you to stop these abuses and to enforce
remedy. This remedy must include a formal apology from the university,
full compensation and back pay, and formal penalties against the student
involved in misconduct.
I expect these matters to be finished before the beginning of next
school semester. I added two more classes to my teaching load on
little notice, because the department chairman needed my help. If I'm
doing my job, and more, it is reasonable to expect that officials in
Taipei relieve me of extra work fighting this case, which is now in its
FIFTH year (FOURTH year since the legal Ministry ruling of 8 January
2001)!

Sincerely,

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