12/4/2002 1:42 PM
President Kao Chiang
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
cc: Scholars at Risk
Ministry of Education
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
American Institute in Taiwan
December 3, 2002
Dear Professor Kao,
This letter is in response to your comment to the international human
rights agency, Scholars at Risk, that the university is following laws in
the handling of my dismissal case. As you read this letter, please consider
whether the university is following or has ever followed laws in this case.
As you know, in March 1999 the Department of Foreign Languages and
Literature held a meeting to effect my dismissal. Secret accusations were
used. These were neither proved nor investigated. I was unaware of the
meeting and denied a defense.
When a member of the Faculty Union challenged the legitimacy of this
dismissal, a secret accusatory letter was circulated at subsequent "appeal"
hearings to insure my dismissal. The letter challenged a grade a student
received eight years before.
The Ministry of Education Appeal Committee did not uphold these
accusations and boldfaced legal rights violations. Subsequently, the
student who wrote the accusatory letter admitted to the Vice-Dean of Student
Affairs that a university official solicited her letter.
You assured Scholars at Risk the university follows laws. Do laws
permit secret letters and unproved accusations? Moreover, why would a
student be allowed to challenge a grade received eight years before?
When a colleague and I spoke with your secretary-general, he informed
us you would not challenge a decision by a university committee. Apparently
a university committee is not in the wrong even if it commits a wrong or
violates due process of law and recognized rights.
As you know, I won a university appeal in December 1999. This was a
final disposition. However, university counsel, acting as chair, wrote a
tactical decision that returned my case to the department claiming the
Teacher’s Law does not protect foreigners.
You affirmed the university follows laws. What law allows
discrimination against foreign faculty?
In January 2002, the Ministry of Education Appeal Committee ruled my
dismissal could not be upheld. The university "interpreted" this to mean I
should be reviewed again. But why appeal if an appellant can hope only to
appeal again?
Appeals are not contestable until the stronger side wins. If so, the
respondent can forever submit new arguments and the appeal is never final.
The rule of final arbitration was established to insure justice and not
power prevailed. Otherwise, there are laws, but not law as understood in
democracies.
The Ministry of Education has sent five warning letters to issue the
retroactive contract. Although you were appointed by the Ministry of
Education and subject to public laws, you and your legal counsel have defied
these letters and these laws.
Instead, over my formal protest, the university convened unsanctioned
hearings and repeated accusations rejected in the Ministry ruling. A member
of the Faculty Union formally discredited the methods of these hearings.
Although the university presumed to investigate me, my grievance action was
denied on the bogus claim I have no legal relationship with the university!
Recently, the university filed a lawsuit contesting my employment at
the university. The lawsuit affronts legal principles.
First, university counsel ignored the Ministry ruling and subsequent
warning letters to issue the contract.
Then university counsel argued foreigners have no right to appeal. In
law, protest must be made before the disposition of a case, not after. By
not contesting the Ministry appeal, the university accepted my right to
appeal and is therefore subject to the Ministry ruling.
Finally, the university curiously argued it could not employ me since I
was teaching at another university. But the reason I'm teaching elsewhere
is because the university has scorned the legal ruling of the Ministry of
Education.
Although the court rejected the university's lawsuit, the university
has appealed. The university has now defied a Ministry ruling and court
decision, as well as admonitory letters from the Ministry of Education,
Scholars at Risk, and our Faculty Union advising principles of law, due
process, and fair play.
Meanwhile I have been frustrated trying to effect justice against the
student who libeled me. Curiously, at our university, legal rights are
ignored to persecute a foreign professor but invoked to defend a student who
libeled him.
Since March 1999, I have taxied all over Tainan to claim countless
registered deliveries announcing an endless cycle of hearings. This paper
chase in itself would discourage petitionary action by other faculty. Do
you believe foreign faculty will intermit their academic careers for years
in an elusive pursuit of justice at our university?
Remedial action should have routinely followed my illegal dismissal.
Disciplinary action against the student should have been automatic, since
her letter was solicited, malicious, without foundation, and submitted
secretly. Yet this case appears to have no end in sight; unless the Control
Yuan, using disciplinary privileges, reminds the university it is a public
institution bound to public laws.
In view of the above facts, your recent letter (21 November) asking my
patience while the university appeals is hollow, if not offensive. Despite
your legal options, there is no moral legitimacy to the university’s appeal.
In conclusion, I repeat the question asked at the beginning: Do you
believe our university is following or has ever followed laws in the
handling of my case?
Sincerely,
Professor Richard de Canio
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
(06) 237 8626
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