Letter to Taiwan Colleagues

Letter to Taiwan Colleagues

3 December 2011

Colleagues,

In June 1999 I was dismissed from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature (FLLD) at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Tainan, Taiwan. When the Teachers Union warned the dismissal was illegal, a student's defamatory letter was solicited by FLLD's chair and secretly circulated at so-called oversight hearings.

In December 1999 my dismissal was canceled. But this was a ruse, presumably to delay the case to insure my departure. The Appeals Committee ruled, against appellate logic, I should be reviewed again.

After my second appeal, the committee ruled the university didn't need a reason to dismiss a foreigner, so upheld my dismissal. Though I won an appeal in a Ministry of Education (MOE) ruling dated 8 January 2001 (attached), the university defied it for nearly two and a half years, despite MOE's ten warning letters (attached) and two letters from Scholars at Risk, an international human rights group. Instead NCKU contested the ruling in court, claiming foreigners had no right to appeal, though the university held appeal hearings and participated at the MOE appeal!

The court upheld the MOE ruling (October 2002), but NCKU officials threatened to appeal indefinitely unless I resigned. The MOE's warning letters forced the university to reinstate me in May 2003, but it held punitive hearings against me, as if MOE's ruling had no legal effect. The MOE declared the hearings illegal.

This case involves more than a few NCKU officials. Though NCKU president Kao Chiang defied an MOE ruling, he was approved by the MOE for another three-year term. Emboldened, subsequent NCKU presidents have refused to remedy, or apologize for, human rights violations.

Instead, in March and May of this year, on NCKU's official web page, current president Hwung-Hweng Hwung and Secretary-General Chen C. C. Chen, repeated false accusations against me as facts and whitewashed my illegal dismissal as a "discontinued employment." One of them contested NCKU's dismissal action when in the Teachers Union but now claims no illegal dismissal occurred. "When the butt changes, the head changes," as the Chinese proverb says.

Though many matriculated or taught at US universities where they enjoyed equal rights under the law, NCKU's faculty remain silent about the case, despite my numerous petitions. Instead, over thirteen years, only three sent private emails, expressing sympathy. "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends" (Martin Luther King, Jr.).

Tainan's prosecutor dismissed my libel complaint against FLLD review members on the basis the false accusations did not circulate outside the university. But all statutes I know state a falsehood is defamatory if one other person reads or hears it. To add salt to the wound, NCKU used my libel suit to claim, in a dismissal action, I spread rumors about the university.

The student was not punished, on the claim her letter did not cause my dismissal, though it was circulated for that purpose. Now she teaches at NCKU, none the worse for her defamatory letter. The Dean of Student Affairs, who ignored my repeated petitions to punish the student, later assumed an advisory role at the MOE.

The court declined to award punitive and compensatory damages, as are routine in other democracies, but simply told NCKU to reinstate me. It's like telling a kidnapper to return the child or a bank robber to return the money, without penalty.

Not a single person involved in my illegal dismissal was called to account for it. A lack of deterrent rulings will compromise democracy, or at least foreigners, hence foreign exchanges, here. Only a vocal protest by the international community will insure change in Taiwan's treatment of foreigners.

What if US courts treated Taiwanese plaintiffs the same way? Vocal protests over the recent taekwondo incident indicate Taiwanese would not be silent as they are in my case.

Though a few Chinese-language newspapers published the case, it was as a human interest item, not a human rights report. As if there was no right and wrong side, just two sides; a case of arbitration, not justice.

This seems to have been the view of the courts, which mediated a compromise rather than rule on principles of law. They had to uphold a Ministry ruling but also had to protect the dignity of Taiwanese against the rights of a foreigner.

Hence the lack of compensatory, punitive, and remedial judgments. A tribal culture relies on arbitration, but a democracy must use principles of law, legitimated in routine court rulings. But in Taiwan, democracy is enjoyed as a franchise, not enforced as a framework of rights.

Though I have repeatedly petitioned the English-language press to expose this case, I've been ignored. They prefer to expose abuses in Mainland China rather than abuses in Taiwan. Writing editorials about the lack of human rights in Mainland China will not advance human rights in Taiwan.

If Taiwan's press has ignored my officially documented case, what other human rights issues have they ignored? This bodes ill for Taiwan's own citizens. For "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" (Martin Luther King, Jr.).

Taiwan's human rights groups have proved useless. If a case of a major university guilty of egregious human rights abuses doesn't incite their commitment one wonders what will.

When NCKU students were indicted for illegally sharing files, Taiwan's lawyers promptly volunteered pro bono assistance. But not a single lawyer has volunteered to accept my case on a pro bono basis.

Presumably illegally downloading files is a good ("pro bono") cause while an American professor who is discriminated against by a major Taiwan university is not a good cause. Someone should tell Taiwan's legal profession to get its priorities straight if Taiwan is to be taken seriously by the international community.

A slogan of the US Counterculture movement in the 1960s was, "Democracy is not something you have, it's something you do." Taiwanese must learn to do democracy every day, in issues small and great, whether it's a crosswalk for schoolchildren or human rights at a university.

In the Middle East and in Mainland China citizens stand up for rights at great risk. But in Taiwan educated faculty refuse to challenge an unjust administration.

The censored media in Mainland China find means to expose human rights issues, while the so-called "free press" in Taiwan will not expose my case. Yet those in China risk imprisonment and torture, while those in Taiwan risk nothing. (Cf. http://rdca45b.blogspot.com/search/label/Silence%20of%20the%20Lambs).

Taiwan tends to inculturate Western values, fitting them to its own ways. Despite democratic principles of law, relationships decide if those principles are enforced.

The case at NCKU is a case in point. Under the circumstances, is it a wonder some Americans have become indifferent to Taiwan's democracy?

Sincerely,

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