Human Rights at NCKU

Sunday, August 1, 2010

NCKU Student Newspaper Reports on the Illegal Dismissal Case at National Cheng Kung University

http://myweb.ncku.edu.tw/~newsclub/NCKUnews/309_1.htm

Posted by Human Rights at a Taiwan University at 8:05 PM

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Labels: NCKU Student Newspaper Report on the Illegal Dismissal Case at National Cheng Kung University

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About Me

Human Rights at a Taiwan University: I formerly taught at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan. I was illegally dismissed in 1999 and won an appeal at the Ministry of Education in Taipei in 2001, but the university refused to enforce that ruling for nearly 2 1/2 years. Since then the university has neither compensated me nor apologized for human rights abuses, which included circulating a secret letter at committee hearings, constantly changing its reasons for the dismissal action, claiming that foreign teachers are not protected by the Teacher's Law that protects Taiwan teachers, and then, despite participating in appeal hearings at both the university and MOE levels, saying that foreigners had no right to appeal. Despite these violations National Cheng Kung University maintains numerous academic exchanges with universities in the US and in other democracies.

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HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AT NATIONAL CHENG KUNG UNIVERSITY IN TAINAN, TAIWAN

The blog you are reading was set up to expose human rights violations at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan, beginning with an illegal dismissal in March 1999 that included a secret letter solicited from a student (conveniently dated the day before a department dismissal hearing). I was allowed to see that letter only after taking the student to court. (The student, incidentally, not only has, to this day, not been punished, but was subsequently hired to teach at NCKU university!)

That letter was circulated at numerous so-called "oversight" (i.e. "review" and "appeal") hearings at the university, which, despite warnings from the NCKU Faculty Union, finalized the dismissal, which was ultimately overturned by the Ministry of Education Appeals Committee (8 January 2001), a ruling that bold-faced human rights violations in pedagogic style.

The university defied that legal MOE ruling for nearly 2 1/2 years. It argued, instead, that 1. Foreigners are not protected by the Teacher's Law and, 2. Despite the fact that the university held appeal hearings and participated at appeal hearings at the Ministry hearings in Taipei, foreigners have no right to appeal!

To this day the university seems to be in a state of denial that it did anything wrong. It has neither apologized for wrongdoing, offered compensation, punished officials responsible, or attempted remedial action to prevent a recurrence of such misconduct.

To this day NCKU officials have acted with impunity. In fact the NCKU president who refused to obey the Ministry ruling, despite 8 MOE warning letters to do so, was subsequently reappointed to another 3-year term as university president.

To this day, to my knowledge at least, not a single faculty member in my department has protested my treatment here. Certainly there has been no organized protest in support of my human rights here. (In Mainland China they stand up to moving tanks.) Yet NCKU is presumably the fourth-ranked university in Taiwan and has numerous academic exchanges with American universities and universities in other democracies.

The letters mainly focus on my illegal dismissal and the failure of NCKU officials to enforce a legal Ministry appeal ruling. (One must assume that a Ministry ruling is legal or it would be pointless not only to have an appeal but to have a Ministry!) However I've included some letters regarding the student who wrote a secret defamatory letter against me, so readers can see the difficulty of administrative remedy at our university. This student's SECRET letter was accepted immediately, resulting in my dismissal, I believe, in two weeks. My numerous petitions to punish her have been ignored for more than ten years! In sum, in a secret letter that was then circulated through several so-called oversight committees ("review" and "appeal" at the "college" and "university" levels), this student argued I failed her unfairly 8 years before. How can a student contest a grade 8 years later? And in secret? Besides, she received 3 other reasonably high passes from me the same year. Where's the logic? Is there another university in the world that would accredit such an accusation, eight years later, without proof, made in secret, and denying the right of the teacher to even learn about the accusation much less defend himself against it (I read the student's letter only after taking her to court!).

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