Letter to Dean of Student Affairs (18 March 2002)

Letter to Dean of Student Affairs
3/18/2002 11:10 PM

18 March 2002

Professor Huei-Chen Ko,
Dean of Student Affairs

Dear Dean Ko,

I received your letter dated February 28, 2002. Regretfully, you use action
phrases such as "thoroughly discussed," "responding to your request," and a
reference to meeting "many times in the past three months," only to
conclude, in an evasive manner common at our university, that administrative
action should be suspended.
You refer repeatedly to "law specialists," "the laws," "university
laws," and "protecting the rights" of "students and staff members."
However, this respect for laws and rights should be consistently observed at
National Cheng Kung University, not only when convenient.
An appeal to law should not be made to conceal abuses of the law.
Apparently at NCKU, if a student secretly and maliciously discredits a
professor, standards of law and morality are ignored. But when the injured
(foreign) teacher seeks redress, the university appeals to the law and to
"law specialists."
I remind you that, not only laws, but moral standards, were violated
when this student’s secret letter was accepted, although it was clearly
written with a malicious intent and made unsupported accusations of many
years before. Even without the documentation I mentioned in previous faxes,
it seems to me that no responsible official should have allowed that secret
accusation, much less accepted it in a dismissal case.
I ignore routine issues, such as that, in an appeal, new accusations
cannot be accepted. The purpose of an appeal is to contest old accusations,
not allow new ones. And these new accusations were not merely allowed, but
apparently solicited.
You write of "university laws." But where were university laws when
this student’s secret, and obviously malicious, letter was accepted? Why do
"law specialists" affirm a student’s rights but not the teacher she
discredited?
I was informed that the previous dean accepted this secret accusation
merely on the basis that the student affirmed she was willing to repeat her
claim in court. Her claim was therefore acceptable as true. If I tell you
that I am willing to go to court to swear that I am Santa Claus, does that
prove to your intellectual satisfaction that I am Santa Claus?
(For the record, in court, this student reprimanded me for taking the
case to court! She also claimed not to remember taking other courses from
me, in which she received high passes, the same year she claims she failed
unfairly. Courtroom testimony also suggested that at least one university
official, a current dean at our university, committed perjury to discredit
me.)
You refer confidently to law. Are you aware how many violations of
law, whether moral or legal, were made to effect my dismissal from the
university?

(1) I was never informed of accusations at a departmental review
meeting. (2) These accusations were not investigated according to Ministry
regulations. (3) They were not proved, by reasonable standards of proof.
(4) Accusers included members of the review committee. (5) A review
committee isn’t supposed to make accusations against a professor, but merely
"review" outside accusations.

University officials are obligated, according to principles of due
process, to defend a colleague’s reputation, not compromise it. To the best
of my knowledge, the reputations of Taiwan professors are not similarly
compromised at American universities, or subject to reckless libel, slander,
or unproved and secret accusations.
I am not certain if your "law specialists" would claim that
"university laws" were followed when a chairman in 1994 tried to effect my
dismissal, using unofficial "student evaluations" against me; or when a
former dean issued false minutes that libeled me. Since you speak of the
legal "rights" of "staff," I wonder what, if any, legal protections you
refer to; unless you refer only to native staff and students, not to foreign
colleagues.
Concerning my teaching contract, you know I won a Ministry of Education
award, canceling my dismissal. Yet the university administration,
presumably counseled by "law specialists," has ignored enforcement of this
ruling. Regarding observance of law, does the Ministry of Education
represent law in Taiwan? If not, what does it represent?
Dean Ko, you refer confidently to "law specialists." But what do you
think it suggests about the knowledge of law at our university, if all
eighteen members of a university committee, presumably the most legally
observant committee at the university, cannot see legal violations that are
obvious to an appeal committee outside the university (these violations were
bold-faced in the Ministry decision)?
These are general issues of concern. Supervisory committees should
deliberate lower committee decisions, not routinely ratify them. Higher
committees should protect higher principles of law and ethics, even if this
compromises the reputations of colleagues on lower committees. It seems to
me that the reputation of a university is worth more than the reputation a
few disreputable officials of that university.
Respect for individual rights also requires that protections against
"double jeopardy" be observed. The law usually protects the weak individual
from abuses of power on the part of more powerful adversaries. Is it fair
to call it an abuse of power when, despite a Ministry of Education ruling, a
university "investigates" those same accusations, using all its tax-funded
staff and resources to harass a colleague?
I conclude by appealing, not to "law specialists," but to the Law, as
well as to moral principles. The right thing is to observe, not merely
laws, but Law. This means the routine observance of Law, not merely the
selective use of some laws in some cases. Indeed, the worst offense against
moral principles is when there is a use of laws to justify an abuse of Law.
The offense is compounded when the victim is a foreign professor whose
native country uses all the resources of laws and due process of law to
protect the reputations of your compatriots.
Apart from law, let National Cheng Kung University officials observe
the Confucian principle of reciprocity. Let them apply the same legal
protections to foreign colleagues that are observed on behalf of native
colleagues, and that are applied in my country on behalf of your
compatriots. Let them punish reprobate students who maliciously accuse
teachers. And, finally, let them protect both the moral as well as the
academic reputation of our university and so preserve a heritage for the
generation that succeeds us.

Sincerely,

Professor Richard de Canio
Depart of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
(06) 237 8626