New York University
194 Mercer Street, Room 410
New York, NY, 10012 USA
tel: 1-212-998-2179
fax: 1-212-995-4402
ATTN: Robert Quinn
16 March 2005
Dear Scholars at Risk,
I have written several letters in the past concerning rights abuses at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan. Scholars at Risk was helpful in writing at least two letters several years ago. But the case continues, although at less urgent levels.
I phoned your office last night (morning in New York) and was asked to write a summary letter of recent events at my university and request further assistance.
To briefly summarize the case, in March, 1999 a secret department review meeting was held to dismiss me. Accusations were unproved and not even investigated. At several meetings a secret letter was circulated in which a former student accused me of unfairly failing her eight years before.
In January, 2001 the Ministry of Education Appeals committeee canceled my dismissal and bold-faced human rights violations, such as "accusations must be investigated and proved," etc.
This would have ended the case elsewhere. But Kao Chiang, the university president, defied the Ministry ruling for more than two years, issuing me a contract only when outside pressure was applied.
Promptly thereafter, a university committee spitefully revived, approved, and passed the same accusations supposedly settled in the Ministry appeal ruling in my favor. The penalty was loss of annual increments and denial of promotion for six years.
At the same time, although I won the Ministry appeal, the university now incongruously claims that since I wasn't teaching during the years of my illegal dismissal, I am not entitled to teaching pay for that period. (Taiwan salaries are divided into teaching and research money, so I received only half of what I am legally entitled to for the years of my illegal dismissal.)
In addition, I am now in litigation concerning compensation for losses incurred during my illegal dismissal, such as travels abroad to renew my visa (this was necessary sometimes every two months). One would think a university would honor principles involving an appeal ruling, such as full compensation, back pay, apology, etc. without contesting these matters in court.
Recently, the Ministry of Education nullified university accusations against me and spelled out that I should not be penalzied for not teaching since the reason I was not teaching was not my fault. But this is all the Ministry of Education in Taiwan does: it periodically circulates form letters to the university if there is no compliance. Meanwhile, the petitioner waits indefinitely, with no end in sight.
Unbelievable as it may seem, recently (six years and countless meetings after the case started) three more meetings were scheduled to decide if I should be awarded my annual increment, even though the Ministry of Education clearly wrote that, in view of my illegal dismissal, I should not be denied my increments. Nonetheless, the College Committee approved the policy the Ministry has already said must be "canceled" (or "cannot be sustained").
Clearly meetings at our university are being used punitively, in a way never intended in democratic law. At the same time (despite Taiwan's vocal cry for democracy you read about in the media) faculty at our university are more interested in advancing democratic ideas in Mainland China than at their own university.
I assure you that I have done everything reasonable, short of giving up my rights, to resolve this case, first within the university, then within Taiwan. But after several years, I (as well as Taiwan colleagues sympathetic to my situation) realized that this was impossible. Indeed, only by appealing outside Taiwan did I finally receive my reinstatement after the university defied the Ministry ruling for more than two years.
Regarding Taiwan human rights groups, I received no assistance at all, just the usual runaround. Only one newspaper published what might be called an expose of the case (however brief), quoting the university president as saying he didn't know what the Ministry wanted him to do. He also told Scholars at Risk the university was following laws, even when he was defying the Ministry of Education appeal ruling and filing a lawsuit seeking to nullify that ruling. (I won the court case but two university officials warned me that they would contest the case in the courts for years. That was when I appealed for outside assistance. Shortly thereafter, I received my retroactive contracts.)
The case of the student who wrote a secret malicious letter against me remains unsettled. The university refuses to handle my complaint, although the student is currently a graduate student and part-time instructor at the university. University officials accepted the student's secret and absurd complaint (about a grade eight years before) in less than two weeks to effect my dismissal and has delayed acting on my formal and legal complaint for more than two years. Yet the same faculty judging these issues benefit from legal rights protections in democracies abroad.
The main issues are, I believe, clear. Human rights should be protected, in substance as well as form. Final Appeal rulings should be final and honored in full; not contested merely on the basis one side doesn't like to lose. In addition, committee hearings should not be used punitively, or as tools of harassment and intimidation, which is how they're being used at our university.
In view of these matters, what I am requesting from Scholars at Risk is some contact with Taiwan's Ministry of Education or other government agencies (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or even the president of Taiwan). My repeated contacts with Taiwan's Human Rights Commisssion, chaired, I believe, by the vice-president, has proved futile, as has my many emails to the Prime Minister's Office, which responds with robot mails saying "Thank you for your letter," etc. A letter expressing concern over the treatment of foreign professors at our university will probably be of use. Contact with our university's sister universities in America might also help.
I appreciate whatever assistance you can give. A case like mine surely must have more general significance for issues related to democracy and human rights, as well as for the dignity of faculty teaching outside their native countries.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Richard de Canio
Associate Professor
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
(06) 237 8626
No comments:
Post a Comment