Wikipedia Edit (2)

November 5, 2010


To the President of National Cheng Kung University and Faculty Colleagues

VERIFICATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AT NATIONAL CHENG KUNG UNIVERSITY
in View of Edit Reverts on the Wikipedia page of National Cheng Kung University


Since my Wikipedia Edit of the National Cheng Kung University page was deleted or reverted several times on the basis of being unsourced, I've added the following source documents from the Ministry of Education.

As these attached documents show, the claim made by Apache776 in the Revision History, dated 17:26, 20 October 2010, regarding my edit of human rights violations at National Cheng Kung University, is patently false:

"If true, a travesty, but no evidence or specifics provided. Also, sadly, it is a fact that at the time the alleged incident occured [sic], foreign faculty were not protected by the Teachers Law of the ROC."


Well, the "evidence" or "specifics" are now "provided." Unless these documents are contested, the dismissal action was indeed a "travesty," to use the words of Apache776.

As for the comment made by Apache776 that "it is a fact that at the time the alleged incident occurred, foreign faculty were not protected by the Teachers Law of the ROC" is disproved by these documents of the ROC. The incident was not "alleged" but actual, assuming legal rulings mean anything. In fact, presumably the only place where foreign teachers were not protected by the Teachers Law was at National Cheng Kung University. Therefore it's a "fact" that human rights were violated there.

Arguments against this fact cannot be sustained, unless the writer's use of the word "fact" is different from common or legal usage.

This is similar to the university's attempt to create a revisionist history of this dismissal case. But this revisionist history will not prevail, regardless whether it's exposed today or ten years from today. It has fallen on me to protect the reputation of American teachers in Taiwan and I intend to acquit myself of that responsibility, whatever it takes.

In a democratic society, institutional might does not create truth; principles of law create truth. Taiwanese should be especially sensitive to revisions of the truth, having suffered from historical revisionism themselves, regarding atrocities during World War II. In scope, of course, that was a far greater tragedy; but in principle it's no different. And before one can define the scope of an injustice one must first define the principles of justice. To create a double standard of justice, one for the victor (or the stronger party) and one for the victim (or the weaker party), is wrong in my case as it is in the other case. The same goes for Mainland China's recent antisecession law, which Mainland China considers a legal action, the way that National Cheng Kung University considers my 1999 dismissal a legal action.

The attached documents are legal rulings. To contest them is to say there are no shared principles of law and right in Taiwan, especially tendentious made by a high-ranked university in Taiwan.

The facts are plain and fully documented. In 1999, a letter was secretly circulated at several oversight committees to effect an illegal dismissal of a foreign teacher. After that dismissal was canceled in December, 1999, the university claimed foreign teachers were not protected by the Teachers Law (disputed in the attached documents), so the case was punitively treated as a hiring action, not a dismissal action, jeopardizing the teacher's employment on a new basis. This violates the basic principle of the right to appeal, namely that one will benefit from a favorable ruling, or why appeal?

The university subsequently held repeated appeal and review hearings and attended hearings at the Ministry of Education. When it lost the case, it then claimed foreigners had no right to appeal!

Whether Taiwan law observes the legal principle of estoppel (a previous legal claim or assumption cannot be subsequently contradicted or denied) is beside the point. This violates even the most basic principles of honesty and good faith. If the university violates these principles how can it expect its students to abide by them. Or how, on that basis, can it expect to maintain academic exchanges with universities in democracies abroad?

Sincerely,

Richard de Canio
formerly Associate Professor
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan