[Fwd: Regarding human rights abuses at a Taiwan university]

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Regarding human rights abuses at a Taiwan university
Date:	Wed, 07 Oct 2009 05:53:46 +0800
From:	rdca25@gmail.com
To:	president@purdue.edu
CC:	trustees@purdue.edu, kokini@purdue.edu, bralts@purdue.edu, george.p.mccabe.1@purdue.edu, purduenews@purdue.edu, andyg@purdue.edu, woodson@purdue.edu, vpec@purdue.edu

France A. Cordova
President
Purdue University

cc: Cliff Wojtalewicz
Executive Assistant to the President
Board of Trustees of Purdue University
Dr. Randy Woodson, Office of the Provost
Dr. Klod Kokini, Purdue University
Dr. Vincent Bralts, Purdue University
Dr. George McCabe, Purdue University
Dr. Andy Gillespie, Purdue University
Purdue News Service

Dr. Alysa Christmas Rollock
Vice President for Ethics and Complicance
Purdue University

7 October 2009

To Officials and Faculty of Purdue University:

Please let me sum up why I think the case at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan is important:

    1. National Cheng Kung University is a high-ranked university in Taiwan, which makes its rights violations of international concern. Furthermore it has numerous academic exchanges with American universities and should therefore be bound by shared principles of legal rights.
    2. The university's actions went beyond a violation of human rights and defied even principles of fair play. Surely no reputable academic institution would participate in an appeal then challenge the ruling because it lost!
    3. The university's dismissal action was egregiously improper to begin with, including the circulation of a secret letter I was not allowed to view except by court order.
    4. The university's subsequent appeal hearings were a charade, since the secret letter was circulated. At one hearing, the chair defiantly refused to reveal the contents of the letter.
    5. When the university reversed the dismissal (for technical reasons) the case was returned to the department for "more proof," though it should have been canceled. The university argued foreigners had no employment rights (a claim rejected by the Ministry of Education). University hearings were presumably a delay tactic to outlast my short-term visas.
    6. After the Ministry of Education reversed the dismissal in January 2001 the university defied the ruling, claiming foreigners had no right to appeal, though the university participated in the appeal and held its own appeals.
    7. University president, Kao Chiang, defied the Ministry of Education ruling for more than two years (from January 2001 to May 2003), despite eight warning letters from the MOE (previously attached) and letters from the US-based human rights group, Scholars at Risk (previously attached).
    8. Meanwhile, university officials argued the university would delay the case in the courts indefinitely unless I resigned at half pay.
    9. Even after reinstatement the university held hearings to impose penalties, despite the Ministry ruling in my favor. These penalties were reversed by the MOE.
    10. No official has been punished, either by the courts or the Ministry of Education, though documentation of abuses is transparent (documents previously attached). Even after university president Kao Chiang defied the MOE for more than two years, he was approved for another three-year term. One questions what "democracy" means in Taiwan.
    11. My colleagues have thus far ignored the case and even sat on "review" hearings after the MOE ruling, as if that ruling had no legal force. Mainland China may not be a democracy, but an appeal ruling would be final there.
    12. I have not received a formal apology from the university or compensation, nor did the courts award damages. Yet the case interrupted my academic career for at least four years, involved numerous trips abroad to renew short-term visas, and cost me and at least one colleague countless hours reading dozens of official documents, translating them, sending replies, and attending numerous university and court hearings. Since my reinstatement I have spent considerable time trying to effect just closure in this case.
    From what I learned at another college, my case was actually used at orientation sessions for new college officials to warn what not to do!
    Surely American universities have the authority to sanction such misconduct at an exchange university. Surely Taiwan's academics are not above international laws of human rights and principles of reciprocity and fair play. Surely academic exchanges are not merely financial transactions but are governed by legal and moral principles.

    Sincerely,


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