Letter to Taiwan Association for Human Rights (2)

Letter to Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR)
10/14/2003 1:00 AM
Subject: Letters to TAHRTo: TAHR@yahoo.com

Taiwan Association for Human Rights
Hsin-sheng S. Road, Section 3
Lane 25, No. 3, 9th Floor
Taipei, TAIWAN
Telephone:886-2-23639787
Facsimile:886-2-23636102
E-mail:tahr@seed.net.tw

cc: Scholars at Risk
University of Chicago

9 August 2003

Dear Ms. Wu,

Since you spoke to me about understanding human rights violations at
National Cheng Kung University, I thought that, apart from previously
emailed and faxed documents, I'd summarize the human rights principles on
which I am requesting your intervention:
First, a foreign professor has the same rights as native Taiwan
citizens, including the right to due process of law and appeal. These
protections should be enforced according to Taiwan's laws and international
principles: A final appeal is final. Issues rejected on appeal cannot be
revived. Remedy includes complete compensation and formal apology.
Regarding general principles of law, a university official must
promptly comply with a legal ruling. No official has the right to
"interpret" a ruling. Only the judiciary has the right to interpret laws,
within constitutional limits.
If a government official does not understand a ruling or how to execute
it, he should resign his office or be subject to administrative and criminal
penalties. No official can claim not to understand what a final appeal
ruling means! It means compliance.
No official has a right to impede or obstruct or otherwise delay prompt
execution of rulings. An official involved in such misconduct should be
promptly dismissed, subject to further penalties or censure.
Yet the university president defied a Ministry ruling for more than two
years. Not only wasn't he punished, but he was recently re-elected to a
second term. At a public forum, he deplored a lack of university funding.
Yet he allowed the university to contest a legal Ministry ruling for more
than two years, costing millions of dollars.
I was told the president would not over-rule a committee decision.
This is commendable policy, unless a committee violates the law. Public
officials are obligated to over-rule committees that transparently violate
laws. No committee can defy a Ministry ruling.
The practical consequences of this injures appellants, which invites
further abuses. Since no one is held accountable for errant committee
rulings, committee rulings can be used punitively, to punish an appellant.
Regardless if the decision is overturned, most appellants could not
realistically commit themselves to administrative remedy, undermining the
purpose of final appeal, which is to limit harassment of appellants.
Officials must execute legal rulings in a transparent manner, according
to the face value of the ruling or law; what "the common citizen would
understand or do." A "final appeal" is universally considered final.
That's why it's called a "final" appeal.
This would be obvious to a fourth grade student. Yet our university
committees concluded that a final appeal subjects faculty, at least if he's
American, to further "review."
Then a final appeal is not final: It is, in other words, a square vase,
as Confucius put it. Indeed, an appeal is pointless. It's better being
dismissed sooner than later. Like the turtle in the Chinese fable who
protests, "If you want to eat me, say so in the first place. Why do it in a
roundabout way?"
Democratic law does not discriminate. As a representative from
Taiwan's Administrative Court protested four years ago: "Taiwan is a
democracy. One law applies to everyone." But university officials needed
more than four years to figure this out, at taxpayers' expense.
Part of the problem is the special status committees have at our
university. This is partly based on a culture of subservience
("relationships") and partly on a general passivity or indifference among
faculty members.
Yet democracy is a government of laws, not committees. Committee
members should uphold the law, not replace it.
But law is either misunderstood or scorned at National Cheng Kung
University. Because of a culture of subservience, an official soon convinces
a committee to accept a baseless accusation or a law is “interpreted” to
suit committee aims. It takes years contesting abuses only to have
committees punitively repeat them. Meanwhile, committee members stonewall
inside their bureaucratic caves, each official referring to another in a
chain of irresponsibility. In this way, no one is responsible instead of
everyone.
Because of the special status that committees and officials have in a
culture of subservience, the appellant is presumed guilty rather than
innocent. Committees routinely ratify ("rubber-stamp") decisions rather
than deliberate them, favoring colleagues over an outsider. But democratic
principle favors a petitioner to balance the power of the many.
In view of an appellant’s limited resources, the principle of final
appeals limits harassment of an appellant and discourages reckless
accusations. The fact that the Ministry of Education Appeal Committee
bold-faced countless legal rights violations shows that our committee
members are either grievously under-educated about, or actually scornful
towards, legal principles. One official even told me he didn't care about
the law!
Yet why should officials care about the law if the law does not care to
censure their misconduct? Defiant, they hide in their bureaucratic caves
until a petitioner gets tired of the chase.
The results are plain in the history of my dismissal case. The
chairman of my department used secret accusations to dismiss me. The Dean
of the College of Liberal Arts, who could have promptly terminated the
injustice, instead accepted a secret student letter merely on the student's
claim. I suppose if I claim I'm Santa Claus he'd believe that too. Three
times I asked the chair of the university review committee about the
contents of that secret letter and he silently stared at me. But after
winning a university appeal, I was told nonetheless, as a foreigner, I would
have to be reviewed again.
After the Ministry ruling, I requested discipline of the student who
wrote the letter. The Dean and Vice Dean of Student Affairs gave me the
run-around for more than two years, like the turtle in the Chinese fable. I
heard every improbable excuse why no action could be taken. Rights are
ignored to injure a professor but invoked to prevent remedy:
“The student was not a student when she wrote her letter.” “She
insisted what she wrote was true.” “The case is pending in the courts.”
“The court ruling prevents further action.” “The student doesn’t want to
come.” “Her mother doesn’t want her to come.” “God will punish her.”
After countless summary faxes and emails, periodically, and with comic
dignity, I was asked to write yet another summary of my complaint. Or I was
told the vice-dean or dean was "collecting evidence."
Although I read of such a bureaucratic maze, in Franz Kafka's The
Trial, I never thought I’d live it myself. Recently I learned the vice-dean
resigned over a sex scandal. If based in fact, I wasted two years appealing
to moral principles he was violating.
Yet democracy is a government of laws as well as moral principles. We
call those principles "human rights."
So apart from laws, what dean has the right to prevent a supervised
meeting between a student and a professor for disciplinary reasons?
Obviously university officials are protecting themselves as well as the
student, since they solicited the student's letter in the first place.
On what moral principle can university officials claim an appellant is
entitled to only half pay since he wasn't teaching during the years of his
illegal dismissal? Or that he should be denied annual increments for those
years? On what moral basis would officials delay a formal apology and
compensation or expect an appellant to fight for benefits he won?
Yet no official at National Cheng Kung University has yet been punished
for flagrant violations of laws and for human rights abuses a fourth grade
student would recognize. Certainly delaying the enforcement of a Ministry
ruling would be called obstruction of justice in my country. Using official
authority to slander and libel a professor is a serious offense, subject to
criminal penalties in many countries. Using one's office to "investigate" a
professor on accusations already rejected in an appeal ruling is abuse of
office, regardless what it's called in Taiwan.
If Taiwan pursues international membership it must, as Confucius said,
"rectify the names" and call things by the proper words, which common
citizens recognize. Using committees to repeatedly harass a professor with
accusations never proved and already rejected on appeal is wrong, even if a
university calls it "review."
Ironically, I encouraged officials to investigate accusations before my
final dismissal in 1999, but was ignored. After the Ministry ruling in my
favor, the university claimed the right to review and investigate me again.
If accusations repeatedly rejected on review and appeal are always
subject to revival a final appeal is pointless. It's better the Taiwan
government warned foreign teachers about risks teaching in Taiwan.
The Taiwan Association for Human Rights should recognize the dangerous
precedent of conduct that establishes the university as a final judicial
agency. Apart from issues of law and human rights, this also threatens
academic freedom, since teachers lose confidence in remedy outside the
university.
These actions reflect the indifference of superior agencies that,
rather than discipline subordinates for misconduct or incompetence, request
another cycle of hearings. Routinely, university officials oblige by
stubbornly repeating their mistakes.
This punishes the appellant rather than the officials, who benefit from
such dilatory tactics, as my case, now in its fifth year, shows. Ideally, a
petitioner quits the fight and transfers.
Indeed, the secretary-general at our university defiantly told a
Chinese colleague in my presence that if university officials had acted
improperly, the Ministry of Education would have punished them. Yet a few
weeks later, the university finally (if only partly) complied with the
Ministry ruling.
But by treating legal rights violations as administrative errors rather
than criminal acts, the Taiwan government fosters a culture of lawlessness.
Indeed, someone at the Ministry of Education informed a Chinese colleague
and me that, "In our society, teachers are considered above the law."
Yet it's not enough to espouse democratic principles at international
conferences but abide by authoritarian values at home. Taiwan officials
seem indifferent about "face" when accusing their Mainland Chinese
counterparts over the issue of Taiwan's rights. Yet they put face above
democratic principles when protecting their colleagues against a foreigner's
rights.
The SARS scandal at Ho Ping Hospital in Taipei shows the dangerous
consequences when officials put face above the public interest. Prompt
punishment of these officials showed that the Taiwan government is able to
act to defend the public interest.
Unfortunately, libel against a foreign professor is not considered of
public interest. The District Attorney rejected my libel suit against
university officials on hearsay testimony. When a Faculty Union member
later contradicted the hearsay testimony, the D.A. apologized but did not
reopen the case.
Similarly, an accusation by review committee members was not considered
libel because it was based on a signed letter. Yet members of the same
committee signed the letter. The accusation was neither investigated or
proved, I was not informed of it or allowed to defend myself, and it
resulted in my dismissal. Yet the case was dismissed.
Finally, I lost my libel case against a student who wrote a secret
accusatory letter because, according to the judge, it was "reasonable" for a
student to believe she failed unfairly, even though the student complained
eight years later and without basis. Using this case precedent, any student
can accuse a teacher of unfair grading many years before. Why should
foreign faculty risk their careers here?
That student's malicious letter was used at my dismissal hearings. The
letter was solicited. Yet the court ruled that since the student's letter
circulated secretly, against university regulations, committee members could
not have accredited the letter.
Then why was it solicited and circulated? Evidence that should have
inculpated the student as well as university officials was used to excuse
them.
Transcripts showed the student concealed high passes in my classes and
low grades in other classes. A letter proved I offered to locate this
student's exam as late as 1994 (the class was in 1988).
But without adversarial cross-examination, all testimony is equally
accredited. Judicial inquiry is complaisant and avuncular, pleasing both
sides with a show of judicial equality. But how does that benefit the
victim?
Presumably this shows a foreigner has a right to judicial action in
Taiwan. But if a student can write a secret spiteful letter accusing a
professor of an unfair grade eight years before, on no basis than her claim;
and it is shown the letter was solicited by university officials and
secretly circulated at dismissal hearings, resulting in dismissal; and if
the student's claims are further discredited when a letter shows the
professor offered to locate her exam as late as 1994 and the student ignored
the letter; and if the student claims to "forget" she took other courses
from this teacher in which she received high passes the same year she claims
she unfairly failed; if, after months of litigation, with months between
sessions, a litigant cannot prove libel and thus restore his honor, then I
suggest that foreigners be advised of risks teaching in Taiwan.
True, many people in Taiwan are kind. But they naively succumb to
pressure from powerful colleagues. Two of my former students admitted their
defamatory letters against me were solicited and unmerited and they
regretted writing them.
They wrote formal retractions.
Older Taiwan academics are less reluctant to admit abuses at our
university. Few probably consider them abuses, since anything done in the
name of relationships is a virtue.
One dean responded incredulously when told the president was defying
the law by not complying with a Ministry ruling. She protested that could
not be, since the university had a lawyer. As it turned out, a colleague
with no background in law defeated that lawyer in court.
Official naiveté, feigned or real, is not conducive to the advancement
of human rights in Taiwan. It's commonly assumed here that officials act
for the best. But democracy advances on a two-sided politics of suspicion,
expecting the best but suspecting the worst.
The worst is that officials maintain official routines. Thus official
complaints have been useless, only increasing the registered documents I
have to pick up at post offices all over Tainan.
Taiwan's newspapers publish numerous letters applauding Taiwan's
democracy and affirming human rights, including the right to
self-determination. But they seem curiously indifferent to human rights
abuses at one of their own universities.
Yet a conflict of interest at a Hong Kong university a few years ago
captivated the Hong Kong media, while campus activists protested. That's
commonplace in a robust democracy.
So far, contacts with human rights organizations have been futile. One
human rights activist told me no one was interested in human rights. Yet
when students at National Cheng Kung University were cited for downloading
MP3 files, Taipei lawyers promptly volunteered pro bono assistance. I've
been hoping for pro bono representation for more than four years, to no
avail. Yet the students, whatever sympathy I feel for them, did not have
the law on their side. I do.
This case is now in its fifth year. It has affected my medical care,
my income, and my academic career. I’ve been harassed by countless illegal
university hearings intended to humiliate me and force my resignation from
the university. Professional colleagues, among the privileged few with
regard for human rights at our university, have dedicated countless hours to
effect justice while other faculty seem indifferent.
Thus despite warnings from the Faculty Union, the Ministry of
Education, the Taiwan courts, and an international human rights
organization, university officials, with tactical naiveté, continue to defy
the law, at no cost to themselves. Instead they have cost taxpayers
millions of dollars and recklessly brought National Cheng Kung University,
the Ministry of Education, and the Taiwan government to the brink of
scandal. Abiding by neither moral principles nor a sense of shame,
university officials will not acknowledge the authority of the law until
they stand in judgment before it.
You wonder what's going on at National Cheng Kung University when it's
obvious: It’s a culture of subservience, where relationships are put above
laws; and where a pattern of unpunished human rights abuses going back many
years reflects a public tolerance of these abuses.
I believe abuses at National Cheng Kung University should concern
anyone dedicated to human rights in Taiwan. Therefore I urge your
commitment to this case, until there is complete closure, compensation, and
penalties where appropriate. The university should admit wrongdoing and
promise to educate faculty on human rights principles. You will not only be
aiding an American citizen, returning the favor received from civil
activists in America; you'll also be advancing the cause of human rights in
Taiwan.

Sincerely,


Professor Richard de Canio
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
(06) 237 8626

Letter to Dean of Student Affair (13 October 2003)

Letter to Dean of Student Affairs
10/13/2003 10:53 AM
Subject: Re: Please arrange a meeting between me and the student involved in
misconduct by the end of next weekTo: mengli_2
CC: moe


Dear Dean Ko,

Thanks for the invitation for a November 5, 2003 meeting with the
student, Ms. Chen.
However, there are several issues I must address:
First, why does it take more than two years for you to respond to a
colleague's request for a supervised meeting with a student? In what other
university does it take this long to satisfy such a request? If there's an
"Office of Student Affairs" it must respond to such requests promptly. The
ethical behavior of students is no less important than the ethical behavior
of faculty. In addition, the willingness of officials to do the job that
they were appointed to do is necessary if Taiwan's universities are to
compete against universities elsewhere.
Second, despite your claim in your email and your "official" letter,
this case is not over. It will not be over until this student admits to
wrongdoing and apologizes for her behavior. I will pursue every legal
channel until this goal is achieved. The student made a formal complaint;
that complaint was formally accepted by the College of Liberal Arts; that
complaint was used at my dismissal hearings; and that complaint must be
formally nullified, including an apology from the student and the university
administration. Any other "solution" is not a solution and is unacceptable
to me.
In condoning or overlooking this student's behavior, the current
administration is fostering a culture of immorality and lawlessness and this
should be unacceptable. This student is currently a graduate student: What
kind of values are you passing on to the next generation of this nation's
leaders: that it's not what you do in life that matters? Good and evil are
irrelevant, so long as you know influential people? Those are not the
values that are the basis of a great society.
So please let's cooperate on a full and just resolution of this case.

Sincerely,


Professor Richard de Canio
(06) 237 8626
2757575 52235

Letter to Dean of Student Affairs (9 October 2003)

Regarding the issue of the student involved in misconduct
Subject:
Regarding the issue of the student involved in misconduct
Date:
Thu, 09 Oct 2003 09:34:13 +0800

To:
Huei-chen Ko
CC:
moe , Control Yuan

Dean Ko Huei-chen
Office of Student Affairs
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan

Dear Dean Ko,

Please let's resolve the matter concerning Lily (An-chuen) Chen as soon
as possible. Please contact Ms. Chen and let's
get together and put an end to this business. I cannot spend much more time
on this issue (I've spent more than two years
already).
Please let's establish this university on an ethical foundation, where
students are responsible for their behavior and officials
are responsible to the law. Your policy of continual delay is unacceptable
to me (and I would imagine most people). This
week is already practically over and I'm still hearing excuses, such as "She
doesn't answer the phone." An Office of Student
Affairs should be able to contact a student registered at its university
with no problem.
Please remember, professors at our university are your colleagues and
they should be treated with respect and courtesy.
At the very least, you should be keeping in touch with me on this issue
every single day until it is resolved satisfactorily,
according to law and moral principles that universities all over the world
recognize. It's a serious issue. A professor's
reputation was tarnished and it must be repaired and the matter remedied.
Thank you.

Sincerely,

Professor Richard de Canio
National Cheng Kung University
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
(06) 2757575 52235