Ministry of Education
Taipei, Taiwan
11 March 2011
Dear Mr. Wu,
You asked to know the facts of my illegal dismissal at National Cheng Kung University in 1999. The case is well known and has appeared in the news but is still unresolved due either to defiant or incompetent officials at NCKU, including several former presidents, up to the current one, Hwung-Hweng Hwung.
One former president, Kao Chiang, defied the Ministry of Education for years, without penalty. In fact, he was approved for a second three-year term even after he defied the Ministry. How can Taiwan's universities expect to maintain academic exchanges with American universities if Taiwan allows discrimination against American professors?
In 1999 a secret accusatory letter was circulated at several review hearings to insure my dismissal when previous accusations were challenged for being improperly investigated.
After my dismissal was canceled in December 1999 the university denied reinstatement on the claim that "foreigners" were not protected by Taiwan's Teachers Law. Thus the dismissal case was returned to the department, now as a "hiring" case, contradicting the purpose of appeal. (This claim was rejected by both Taiwan's Ministry of Education and Taiwan's Courts.)
After many bogus university hearings, which repeated the same unproved and defamatory accusations with the same results, I appealed to the Ministry of Education and won a ruling dated January 8, 2001. The university then claimed foreigners were not entitled to appeal, though it held numerous appeal hearings and attended the one in Taipei. Instead of obeying the law, which is what officials do in a democracy, the university filed suit to contest the Ministry ruling.
When the court ruled against the university, it defied court and Ministry rulings, ten warning letters from the Ministry (attached), and two advisory letters from Scholars at Risk, a human rights group based in New York.
Four years after my dismissal, and nearly two and a half years after the Ministry ruling, the university reinstated me, but held illegal hearings to deny me promotion and increments for seven years. That decision was also overturned by the Ministry of Education.
To this day several university presidents have ignored my many petitions to resolve this case according to principles of law and international law to which Taiwan subscribes.
The student who wrote a secret malicious letter against me, which I saw only by court order years later, was never punished and is now teaching at our university after receiving her Master's and Doctorate at NCKU. However her graduate committees were made up almost entirely of the same professors who defended her for writing a secret letter against me. This calls into question the impartiality of NCKU's accreditation process, since I know of no professor in any democracy that would defend a student for secretly accusing a teacher, especially when it was solicited by one of the professors who defended her action.
The officials who violated my rights by circulating unproved accusations and a secret letter were never punished. Committee members and chairs who chose to protect their colleagues instead of my rights, discrediting formal remedy at our university, were never held accountable. Apart from retroactive salary, I received no compensation for the interruption to my career and the costs, in time and money, fighting this case to the present day.
The current president, Hwung-Hweng Hwung, is engaged in the same dismissive and delay tactics of his predecessors. But if Dr. Hwung doesn't take this case seriously I will pursue his dismissal in the courts and also argue for the termination of academic exchanges with American universities. Should a university that has no internal means to remedy its abuses be allowed to maintain academic exchanges with US universities governed by human rights principles, laws, and administrative remedy?
The discriminatory actions against a foreign professor would be called "racism" under most definitions of that word. When a young Taiwan student accuses her American professor of unfairly failing her eight years before, without proof, and in secret, and is favored by university officials over the professor himself, undermining principles of due process, proof, and equal rights under the law (including the right to challenge the accuser), that should be considered institutionalized racism at National Cheng Kung University; and on that basis I will argue under US laws that academic exchanges with NCKU should be terminated, in the same way that was done during apartheid in South Africa.
National Cheng Kung University's stubborn refusal to issue a formal apology addressing the serious legal rights issues involved, make compensation, and insure penalties against those who conspired during the university's illegal dismissal action has added insult to injury.
This is not only an issue of principle. The university's refusal to issue a formal apology has caused grievous harm to the present time. For example, a student wrote on the Internet just last year that most NCKU students heard of Lily Chen's accusations against me and favor her over me! (See attached.)
An Edit for Wikipedia's NCKU entry, dated October 20, 2010, even denies my illegal dismissal ever happened and, contrary to court and Ministry rulings, claimed foreign teachers were not protected by the Teacher's Law. (See attached.)
Thus the university's refusal to handle this case according to principles established in most democracies and under international laws Taiwan's president recently endorsed is adding insult to injury and makes it all the more necessary that this case be formally resolved. I will not accept the university's revisionist history of this case. History will know what happened, not what NCKU says happened.
Dr. Hwung should understand that this case will be resolved according to principles shared by all democracies, including a formal apology, just compensation, and penalties against officials involved. There will be no compromise, and time is running out for Dr. Hwung as NCKU president.
If the administration thinks it's going to play hide-and-seek with me the way past administrations did it is grievously mistaken. Essentially, I will use international human rights charters that Taiwan's president signed to insure Dr. Hwung's dismissal as NCKU president. I will also continue my petition to have NCKU's exchanges with American universities terminated on the basis of discriminatory acts against American professors.
Sincerely,
Richard de Canio
formerly Associate Professor
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
(06) 237 8626
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