Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Fwd: Regarding Human Rights Abuses at a Taiwan Exchange University

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Richard John <rdca25@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 10:36 PM
Subject:
To: webmaster@doe.in.gov
Cc: ienmary@aol.com, jennifers@che.in.gov, kens@che.in.gov, info@indianahumanities.org, nconner@indianahumanities.org, pbates@umich.edu, emimms@umich.edu, todd.zoellick@ed.gov, kristine.cohn@ed.gov


Indiana Department of Education
Dr. Tony Bennett, Superintendent of Public Instruction
Statehouse, Room 229
Indianapolis, IN 46204-2795

Phone: (317) 232-6610
Fax: (317) 232-6610
Email: webmaster@doe.in.gov
Website: http://www.doe.in.gov
To State Education Agency (State Department of Education),

19 November 2011

Dear Indiana Department of Education,

I sent a previous email to your agency, dated July 6, 2011, addressed to superintendent@doe.in.gov, but, to my knowledge received no reply except the following:
Thank you for contacting the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE). Due to a high volume of messages received you may encounter a response time that is a bit longer than that to which you are accustomed. However, members of the IDOE's staff will work hard to respond with thorough answers to your questions as quickly as possible. Thank you in advance for your patience.
As it turns out I am still awaiting "thorough answers" "as quickly as possible."

I have contacted Purdue University, including its president and Board of Regents, concerning its academic exchanges with National Cheng Kung University, in Tainan, Taiwan. I documented numerous human rights abuses committed by that university, but received no satisfactory reply. One Purdue official sent me a dismissive email:

7/25/09 Dear Professor Canio, Thank you for your email. Although I empathize with you, this institution is not in the position to comment on your statements. Sincerely,

I am a US citizen. The abuses at National Cheng Kung University are documented in government and court rulings (attached). The university effected my illegal dismissal, maintained "foreign" faculty were not protected by Taiwan's Teachers Law, then deviously held appeal hearings without legal benefit. After losing an appeal at Taiwan's Ministry of Education, it then argued foreign faculty had no right to appeal.

The Ministry sent ten letters over nearly two and a half years, warning the university to comply with the law (attached), which the university ignored until May, 2003 following a court ruling against it. Even then it defiantly held "hearings" against me as if the Ministry of Education ruling had no legal effect, and imposed penalties, subsequently declared illegal and canceled by the MOE.

In a revisionist ploy, as if the MOE ruling did not exist, as late as this year the university claimed, on its official web page, signed by the university president and Secretary-General, that, despite MOE and court rulings (attached), no illegal dismissal or human rights violations occurred, while it repeated accusations against me as if they were facts rather than malicious accusations formally rejected by the Ministry of Education.

How can an American university maintain academic exchanges with a university that brazenly scorns human rights and even fair play (participating in an appeal process but not honoring its ruling)? Surely academic exchanges should involve international principles of human rights and collegial respect, not mere monetary interests.

By those principles, endorsed by both the US and Taiwan governments, National Cheng Kung University is a rogue institution, administered outside the rights and protections of those principles. Assuming those principles are respected, an American university should not, in good faith, maintain academic exchanges with such a university.

I believe the same federal protection of human rights that pertains to our national colleges and universities should apply to academic exchanges abroad. In respect of this, I am formally requesting that the Indiana Department of Education insure a termination of academic exchanges that National Cheng Kung University currently enjoys with Purdue University.

Thank you for your consideration of this petition.

Sincerely,

Richard de Canio
(Formerly Associate Professor
National Cheng Kung University)
2 University Road
Alley 18
#508
Tainan, Taiwan
886-06-237 8626

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