Letter from Scholars at Risk

7/25/2001 10:59 PM
Subject: RE: Your message of July 25, 2001To:

Dear Professor de Canio:

This message responds to your most recent message of July 25, 2001, and your
earlier message of July 6, 2001. My apologies for the delay.

You are correct when you state in your most recent message that this is a
difficult case for Scholars at Risk precisely because the "risk" that you
are experiencing are not directly physical or violent. Nevertheless, they
are a direct threat to your work and therefore worthy of serious attention.
For that reason we have corresponded and hoped to understand the situtation
better. An added difficulty in acting in your case, as I have mentioned
earlier, is that it involves a localized dispute procedure and
interpretation of local law. You can appreciate that it is difficult for us
from this distance and without local expertise to verify independently the
allegations you have raised. In stating this I do not in any way mean to
question your reports, but only to indicate that we have no good means of
making independent judgments about the situation. These difficulties leave
us with two options.

Scholars at Risk could submit a general letter of inquiry to the appropriate
university official or agent at the Ministry of Education indicating that we
have received allegations of disparate treatment of foreign teachers, and
specifically mentioning your case. I do not know to what effect such a
letter would have, and leave to you to decide whether it would be helpful.
If you believe it would, please send us the name(s) of the person to whom
you believe it should be sent.

A second option which may be more effective in drawing attention is to draft
a newspaper article discussing the problem of disparate treatment of foreign
university teachers in Taiwan, citing your example within the story. We do
not have the time nor expertise to draft such an article. But if you or a
colleague there were to draft such an article and send it to us we could
attempt to circulate it to persons in the education media, for example the
US Chronicle of Higher Education. We would offer it to them as a draft
which they would possibly rework and use as under their own name. If the
story runs, it could be very beneficial in raising attention. Of course I
cannot guarantee that it will run.

Regarding contacting the US Senate, I am afraid I do not fully understand
the rationale behind that action. If you could explain then I might be able
to offer suggestions.

Regarding your colleague's inquiry about starting a Scholars at Risk branch
in Taiwan, our Network does not have "branches" per se, but we would welcome
the participation of any interested universities or colleges. An
application form to join can be found online at
http://scholarsatrisk.uchicago.edu/documents/index.html.

Thank you again for your continuing patience with us. I look forward to
your reply.

Sincerely,

Robert Quinn