National Taiwan University’s (NTU) Action Alliance for University Autonomy yesterday demanded that the Ministry of Education appoint Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) as NTU president and urged the school’s presidential election committee to boycott a new election process.
The ministry on Friday instructed the university to nominate another president, citing Kuan’s failure to reveal a conflict of interest in the election and his alleged academic misconduct.
The group — which said it consists of more than 4,000 NTU students, faculty members and alumni — yesterday issued a statement accusing the ministry of undermining the university’s autonomy by ignoring its election result and the conclusions of its council meetings.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Even though Deputy Minister of Education Yao Leeh-ter (姚立德) took part in the election process, the ministry did not raise any questions until the election was over, it said.
“By overthrowing its own decision, the ministry has not only abandoned its integrity and obligation to obey the law, but also undermined the university’s autonomy,” it said.
The group called on the ministry to immediately appoint Kuan and demanded that Premier William Lai (賴清德) apologize to the public.
It also asked the election committee to not choose another nominee, saying that “any academics with a sense of pride should refuse to run for president if there were to be a re-election.”
It encouraged people to attend a concert on campus at 4pm on Friday and join a campus rally on Saturday next week, when a university council meeting is to be held to discuss the school’s next step.
Several hours before the group released the statement, NTU law professor Shen Kuan-ling (沈冠伶) announced her resignation from the presidential election committee, saying some members’ decision to boycott a re-election has prevented her from performing her duty.
Her resignation came a day after election committee spokeswoman Yuan Hsiao-wei (袁孝維) said it would refuse to elect a new president, adding that more than half of the committee members support the decision.
Yuan’s statement cannot represent the entire committee, because she did not consult other members, Shen said.
Meanwhile, public opinion on the ministry’s decision to reject Kuan’s appointment is becoming increasingly polarized.
On Monday, interim NTU president Kuo Tei-wei (郭大維), National Taiwan Normal University president Wu Cheng-chih (吳正己) and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology president Liao Ching-jong (廖慶榮) issued a joint statement urging the ministry to respect universities’ autonomy and accept their election results.
A petition launched by National Taipei University of Business president Chang Ruay-shiung (張瑞雄) and six other school presidents calling on the ministry to respect university autonomy has collected more than 60,000 signatures.
Alternatively, the North America Taiwanese Professors’ Association yesterday issued a statement urging the ministry to strictly supervise universities to ensure they protect “real autonomy” by following regulations.
A talk at NTU on superconductivity by Minister of Education Wu Maw-kuen (吳茂昆) scheduled to begin at 2:20pm yesterday was on Monday canceled by the school.
NTU cited the need to prevent the “possibility of disorder,” because the labor and other resources needed to maintain order at the venue was beyond its capabilities.
“There was information online saying that some people would try to prevent me from leaving. NTU was worried that students might get hurt if something happened,” Wu told media personality Clara Chou (周玉蔻) on her radio show yesterday.
Additional reporting by Rachel Lin
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods