The Ministry of Education yesterday said it is to hand over Deputy Minister of Education Benson Yeh’s (葉丙成) handling of a gender inequity case at National Taiwan University (NTU) to the Gender Equity Education Committee for a formal investigation.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators from the Legislative Yuan’s Education and Culture Committee in a joint statement yesterday morning condemned the ministry’s response to the case as deeply unprofessional and lacking oversight, demanding an external investigation by the equity committee.
Yeh last month on Facebook allegedly disclosed details of the case, gave personal commentary and risked exposing the identity of the student involved.
Photo: Rachel Lin, Taipei Times
The ministry said the equity committee, consisting of independent experts, would conduct an impartial investigation.
Yeh, also a professor at NTU’s Department of Electrical Engineering, shared a post on Facebook on April 21 containing screenshots of WeChat messages that allegedly disclosed sensitive information.
He has since edited the post and removed or censored the screenshots, but the affected student said in the comments: “Surely you know that campus safety reports must be kept confidential?”
The post amassed more than 12,000 reactions and 700 comments, with many asking him to apologize.
“In the future, I will make a clearer distinction between my role as professor and deputy minister,” he said, in a comment.
The lawmakers said that in a separate case last year, the Control Yuan found that NTU had failed to protect students after a sexual harassment incident was exposed, which led to safety concerns for the student involved.
Following the investigation, the ministry and NTU were issued corrective actions, they said.
However, the ministry has failed to implement these corrections or supervise NTU in improving its systems and procedures, leaving students in an “unsafe learning environment,” they said.
In response to the inequity case, DPP members of the Education and Culture Committee said they twice sent formal letters to the ministry to call for an investigation, on April 25 and May 9.
The ministry has since failed to recognize the seriousness of the incident or release details of the personnel involved, they said.
According to Article 41 of the Gender Equity Education Act (性別平等教育法), the ministry is required to clearly explain its investigation process and disclose whether conflict-of-interest protocols were followed, they said.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS