Students protest to defend streaker

About a dozen students yesterday rallied in front of Formosa Plastics' (台塑) corporate headquarters to protest the stiff punishment imposed by Chang Gung University (長庚大學) on a student who streaked around a campus athletic field after losing a bet.

The students asked the authorities to be more tolerant of young people's occasionally crazy behavior and to protect students' freedoms of expression and thought. The protesters chose the rally site because the company founded the university,

"We want to highlight this incident to show how a renowned university established by a leading enterprise in Taiwan dealt with an action that it called unacceptable and immoral," said Hu Tien-yu (胡天又), a history major of the National Taiwan University.

Hu and the other students carried birdcages and banners reading "We support people who keep their word" and "Chang Gung University is arbitrary" to express their support for the student.

The streaker was punished with two major demerits, two minor demerits and "detention under surveillance" for streaking after the basketball team he had bet on lost a game.

A major demerit would usually be applied to students who cheat on exams, steal or get drunk and disruptive. The protesters said the student's unclad promenade lacked the harmful or immoral qualities of these more serious offenses.

"Unreasonable punishment will not help society to progress, nor did it help the student reflect on his behavior," Hu said.

Hu said more students besides the protesters hoped that school officials would review the student's streaking with an open mind rather than using authoritarian attitudes in disciplining students.

Some students of other universities reportedly even suggested a boycott of Chang Gung University, calling on students who will enter colleges this fall not to choose Chang Gung and thus affect the university's ranking.

The students said the university's president, Pao Chia-chu (包家駒), went back on his word. Pao had said that the streaking "did not matter much" when he heard about it, but later decided to punish the student for "hurting the school's reputation." The protesters said this doubletalk was inferior to keeping one's promise, as the student did regarding his bet.

Pao said yesterday that the university will not change its decision.

"The punishment is to let the student know that Chang Gung cannot accept such behavior," Pao said.

The streaker said yesterday that he never expected his behavior to cause such a huge controversy, and that he knew he had made a mistake.

"I don't think it [streaking] is something to be proud of. I don't want to be famous," the student said. "I just hope the whole thing will end soon."