Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School principal Hsu Chien-kuo (徐建國) yesterday said his comments were misrepresented after he sparked criticism on Friday by saying that universal suffrage is unfair to people who have reached higher levels of education, which some have interpreted as an elitist comment.
The remark went viral online after a school publication reported Hsu’s comments on Friday.
Hsu reportedly made the remark in a meeting with students to discuss whether students should be allowed to wear athletic outfits instead of uniforms when entering and exiting the campus.
The report said that Hsu promised to consider partially lifting uniform restrictions on a trial basis if a majority of students supported the deregulation, but said that he was not obliged to follow students’ opinions, as the decision has to be made with professional judgement.
“Democracy is not accepting a majority’s view. One person, one vote is unfair, as people from an elite institution like Jianguo High School or National Taiwan University and homeless people who only have a primary school education differ much in knowledge and professionalism,” Hsu was quoted by the report as saying.
The remark sparked an Internet backlash after one student, Chu Chen (朱震), posted the report on Facebook, with netizens leaving comments including: “The law might as well stipulate that only the elite can vote” and “This is where dictatorship comes from.”
The report also quoted Hsu as saying that wearing athletic outfits would affect society’s perception of the school’s students, even though the school’s athletic outfit is also a kind of uniform.
Former student association president Lu Kuo-wei (呂國瑋) said most students believe that wearing a uniform is inconvenient and restrictive, and that a school’s image does not depend on its uniform, but on identification.
In response, Hsu yesterday said the report misrepresented him and that he did not mean to discredit the idea of one person, one vote, and was only citing the evolution of electoral systems as an example.
Students would have heckled him if he really meant to discriminate against certain groups of voters, Hsu added.
Some students believe that the school should be the first to lift uniform regulations, as it was the first to lift hairstyle regulations in 2005, Hsu said, but added that the lifting of hairstyle regulations was ordered by the Ministry of Education.
If students want to lift uniform regulations by themselves, there is a due process to follow, he said.
Hsu said students should put their proposal to lift uniform regulations up for a school debate and come up with a trial method and voting procedure.
The incident was the latest in a string of similar events related to high-school uniform regulations, including one incident last month in which students at National Taichung Girls’ Senior High School took off their skirts to demand the right to wear shorts.
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