Letter to Taiwan Ministry of Education

±H¥ó¥Á²³: "vertigo@ms22.hinet.net"
±H¥ó¤é´Á: SAT, 04 SEP 2004 15:56:15
¥D¡@¡@¦®: Legal rights abuses at National Cheng Kung
University
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Ministry of Education

Taipei, Taiwan

4 September 2004

Dear Ministry of Education Officials,

As you can see from a copy of
this news item (right), even an appeal that lasts [Image]
for a year is considered
too
long by citizens elsewhere.

Yet my appeal against National Cheng Kung
University is now in its SIXTH year and it is still going
on. I am
STILL waiting for the Ministry Appeal ruling on matters
that should have
been finished in the appeal ruling of 8 January 2001. Of
course,
if there were just officials at our university, this case
should have been
closed after the first appeal hearing in June, 1999. What
Dean of
Liberal Arts (Dean Tu), in any other democracy, would allow
a secret letter
as "evidence" in appeal? The fact that he has still not
been punished
for this only adds insult to injury.

Moreover, it took more than two years for
the university to enforce the Ministry Appeal ruling. And
the university
continues to contest my claim for compensation and has
still not offered
an apology.

If a national university does not think it
need apologize for human rights abuses that included secret
meetings, unproved
accusations, and circulating a secret letter at appeal or
review meetings,
then that university cannot claim to moral standing. If,
after more
than five years, in view of the facts presented above
(secret meetings,
unproved accusations, a secretly circulated letter,
malicious revival of
accusations, and defiance of a legal Ministry ruling),
these officials
continue to go unpunished, one has a right to ask: How is
that possible?
What legal standards are being used to excuse officials for
passing around
a secret letter or for refusing to enforce a legal Ministry
ruling for
more than two years?

In addition, a student surnamed Chen, who
wrote a secret and spiteful letter against her former
teacher, now enjoys
part-time employement at our university. I've been
teaching at NCKU
for sixteen years and I cannot recall a single student in
our department
(Foreign Languages and Literature) hired as a part-time
teacher except
Ms. Chen. Ms. Chen, as it happens, was the only one who
wrote a secret
and spiteful letter against her former teacher, used at his
dismissal hearings.

Coincidence? But apart from this, Ms.
Chen should not remain in employment as a part-time teacher
here knowing
that she wrote such a letter, secretly complaining of a
grade eight years
after her class.

Why should a student be rewarded for misconduct
rather than for good conduct? Moreover, her employment
here means
a morally and academically superior student has been denied
such employment.
Taxpaying citizens have the right to equal opportunity for
their children.

Employment at a national university concerns
the entire community of scholars and taxpayers, who have a
right to insure
that competitive standards and fair evaluation are
maintained. I
don't think such standards were kept in this case. The
student's
secret and spiteful letter, complaining of a grade eight
years before,
should be enough to insure termination of that student's
employment
here.

Sincerely,

Richard de Canio

Associate Professor

Department of Foreign Languages and Literature

National Cheng Kung University

Tainan, Taiwan