Student Misconduct

2/15/2004 1:14 PM
Subject: Concerning the issue of student misconduct at National Cheng Kung
UniversityTo: Huei-chen Ko
CC: hefpp@hef.org.tw, tahr@seed.net.tw, moe ,
Control Yuan ,
Vice-President Lu ,
eyemail@eyemail.gio.gov.tw, peu03@mail.gio.gov.tw,
Kao Chiang

Professor Ko Huei-chen
Dean of Student Affairs
Office of Student Affairs
National Cheng Kung University (NCKU)
Tainan, Taiwan
06-2757575-50300

cc: Prime Minister's Office, Taiwan Human Rights Commission, Ministry
of Education, Department of Higher Education, Control Yuan, Taiwan
Association for Human Rights, Humanistic Education Foundation, National
Cheng Kung University President's Office (06-2757575-5000)

15 February 2004

Dear Dean Ko,

Before I take further action, I think it important that I try again to
make you understand the administrative, moral, and legal issues
regarding the case of student misconduct at our university.
In 1999, several NCKU committees circulated a secret letter written
by a former student of mine, who claimed I failed her unfairly eight
years before. She had no proof of this. Documented evidence, including
a letter she ignored in 1994 and high passes I gave her the year of her
failure discredit the student. In addition she lied about not taking
my classes in which she received high grades. In court she claimed, “I
forgot.” As if a student could remember one grade but not three others!
All this is beside the point of course. No rational official
would accept a secret complaint from a student about a grade eight years
before. Indeed, the letter was solicited by a university official and
dated the day of my dismissal hearing.
No one can believe in the innocence of this student or the
officials who secretly circulated her letter. If university officials
cared about my rights the way you now appeal to the student’s rights,
this case would never have happened. Appealing to a student’s rights
after I spent four years getting my job back is insulting, Dean Ko.
These are serious human rights violations and I am committed to
defending my rights as well as the dignity of American professors at our
university, whatever the cost.
Also bear in mind this student was admitted into our graduate
program, worked in the university president’s office, and is currently a
part-time teacher at our university. The taxpaying public has a right
to know if a student has achieved this on merit or by deceit.
Since you’re the dean of “students,” remember that other students
wish to be admitted to our graduate programs and to obtain employment at
our university. It is unfair to them if they have lost out on the
chance because they behave well while another student succeeded because
she behaved badly.
Now let us review, for you and for concerned agencies, your
response to my complaint.
First, you took way too much time to begin with. You and your
vice-dean, who has since resigned over a scandal, delayed handling this
case for years, claiming you were “investigating” or “gathering
evidence.”
Since when does it take years to call a student into your office?
What kind of “investigation” are you talking about? What kind of
“evidence” needed to be gathered?
The facts are plain. The student wrote the letter. The letter was
circulated. Her claim of failing eight years before is absurd on the
face of it, but more so since it was made in secret and circulated in
secret. The letter was clearly spiteful. The letter was solicited and
dated on the day of my dismissal hearing. The student concealed
receiving a high pass the semester after her failure. She lied about
not taking another class that year in which she received two high
passes.
As late as 1994, when I heard malicious gossip about her grade, I
wrote her a letter offering to locate her exam. She ignored that letter
and, according to my colleague who was her instructor, she told him if I
pursued the matter further she would talk to a lawyer acquaintance.
The student didn’t want her complaint made public, because she knew
it was false. She could not write a secret complaint at the time
because she had to wait until officials were willing to accept and
circulate her letter. One of these officials, former Dean Tu, is now
teaching at another college. Another, Professor Lee Chen-er, ran for
president of our university.
I have an email from a colleague dated one year before the student
wrote her secret letter. He warned me the student was planning to
accuse me in exchange for employment.
You claim there is no username on this email. Of course I blocked
it out to protect the professor. But the court accepted the email; and,
of course, I would be perfectly willing to show the original email to a
confidential committee whose moral integrity could be trusted to protect
the name of this professor. After all, it was a confidential letter and
your concern should be to expose the student, not the name of the
teacher who wrote the email.
Do you think our administration is interested in exposing the
truth, or in exposing the professor? The email warns me of events
almost one year before they happened. Was that a mere coincidence, Dean
Ko?
You also claim the student was not a student when she wrote her
letter. First, she defended her letter as “truthful” to your vice-dean
when he called her into his office. She was a student and teacher when
she did this. It’s not my job to do your job. Did you phone your
former vice-dean? If not, why not? Are you interested in resolving
this matter or in delaying it? Administrators at our university may
have all the time in the world. I don’t.
Your office seems to be playing an obstacle game. In this
game--which I don’t like playing--it’s up to me to spend weeks or months
surmounting an obstacle. When I do, another obstacle is placed in front
of me: Your vice-dean is “gathering evidence.” Or you’re judging
evidence. Or a court decision is pending. Or a court judgment prevents
action. Or the student was not a student when she wrote her letter. Or
a university lawyer advised you against action. Or there’s no proof.
Or the student claimed she was telling the truth. Or (I like this one)
the student refused to come. Or (I like this one better) the student
said she was a “good girl.” Or (I like this best of all) God will
punish her.
Since when is God a paid official at our university? If God were,
there would be no legal rights abuses such as insured my dismissal in
1999 and delayed my return for two years after a legal Ministry ruling.
For your sake, let me address some serious issues.
First, administrative remedy should have taken days instead of
years. Consult any university in the world about this matter if you
don’t believe me. Administrative remedy that lasts more than days or at
most weeks is a mockery of what the law intends.
Second, the proof is as plain as the nose on the student’s face.
That letter alone should be sufficient since it is available, refers to
a grade eight years before, was without proof, was spiteful, secret,
dated the day of my dismissal hearing, and used at my dismissal hearing.
Third, as I said above, other facts, such as the student hiding
high passes she received from me the year of her disputed grade
discredit the student.
Fourth, you claim the student was not a student when she wrote her
letter. Yet she defended her letter to your vice-dean while a student.
But apart from this, as university dean, you should be concerned
about student misconduct, which is not a legal but a moral issue.
There is no statute of limitations or legal standards for misconduct.
The problem is there may be no standards for student misconduct at our
university. Or if there are, you’re ignoring them.
If my child breaks a window while staying at my brother’s house,
does that mean I cannot punish the child because she was not under my
care at the time? What kind of moral logic is this? If you’re a
mother, would you apply this moral logic in raising your child?
Fifth, you claim the court decision prevents action. The court
decision concerned a criminal offense, while the student’s letter
concerns misconduct. There’s a difference between legal and moral
judgments.
The court decision concerned whether the letter caused my
dismissal. Your concern should be whether the letter is student
mischief, assuming you’re interested in student conduct as Dean
of Student Affairs.
If a student is found innocent of drunk driving in a court, that
does not mean she cannot be punished for being drunk by a university
official. One concerns a legal fact (crime), the other a moral fact
(misconduct). If a student breaks into a house and causes a feeble man
to get a heart attack, she may be found innocent of murder but not of
breaking into the house.
My child may be found innocent of robbing a store; I may be glad
for this, since prisons are bad places. But if I know she robbed that
store I will punish her and no court can prevent this. Misconduct is
subject to “knowledge” in the common sense, not “proof” in the legal
sense. Only a bad mother would raise a child based on legal standards
instead of moral standards.
Sixth, you argue this student will become a better person if she is
not punished. I know of no moral philosopher who would agree with you.
Even if one agrees with the ethic of forgiveness (as I do), forgiveness
must follow admission of wrong, not ignore it. This is written all over
Chinese and Western moral literature: good people admit their mistakes.
Wrongs are forgiven following admission and apology.
But this student has not asked to be forgiven. Nor has she
apologized. Instead she refused to attend a meeting you scheduled
between us. Since when does a student decide policy at our university?
Seventh, you quote a lawyer who advised against action. I remind
you that our university lawyer contested a legal Ministry ruling for
more than two years, an action that would probably fall under
“obstruction of justice” in my country. He then used taxpayers’ money
to contest that legal ruling in court, after the ruling favored me. His
action cost taxpayers millions of dollars in back pay. This money could
have funded dozens of student scholarships. Clearly this lawyer has a
different concept of law and ethics than I and (I assume) most members
of bar associations.
I remind you that Faculty Union members warned university officials
about laws but they were ignored. Instead, the university lawyer used
the courts to delay enforcement of a legal Ministry ruling.
Knowing this, you referred to another lawyer. But democracy is a
government of laws, not lawyers. The failure to understand this is
costing taxpayers money and insuring abuses. Officials should do
the job taxpayers pay them to do. They’re not supposed to refer to
lawyers, officials, or committees, in an endless tactic of delay. They
are bound to laws. This means laws as they are written, not as they are
"interpreted" or selected to suit the occasion. Otherwise there are
laws but no law.
Without law (nondiscriminatory enforcement of laws), there is the
form of democracy but no substance. How is what our university did to
me different from what Mainland Chinese officials do to the Falun Gong?
Are you willing to argue one is wrong while the other is right?
Speaking of right and wrong, the Ministry ruling of 8 January 2001
is legal, final, and binding. I expect the full benefits that ruling
insures, including full pay, compensation, apology, and remedial
action. That includes punishment of that student. Any failure on the
part of university officials to understand that I am fully committed to
protecting the rights of American citizens at National Cheng Kung
University will only further discredit our university.

Sincerely,

Professor Richard de Canio
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
06-237 8626