Fu Jen students launch petition to remove dean/TV comments to be reviewed

Fu Jen students launch petition to remove dean

By Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

The Fu Jen Catholic University Students’ Association yesterday launched an online petition seeking the removal of College of Social Sciences dean Hsia Lin-ching (夏林清) over her handling of sexual assault allegations made by a psychology student against another student.

The association said that article 14 of the Teachers’ Act (教師法) stipulates that teachers should be fired if they have “bullied a student, caused trauma” or were “negligent in teaching, unfit for their jobs or in serious breach of their teaching contracts.”

Hsia’s actions have violated academic ethics and the principles laid down in the Ex Corde Ecclesiade by Pope John Paul II, which governs the Catholic university’s recruitment of its teaching staff.

As the procedure governing a teacher’s dismissals must be initiated by the psychology department’s teachers’ evaluation committee, whose decisions are reviewed by its counterparts at the College of Social Sciences and the university, the association demanded that the department hold a committee meeting no later than Oct. 15 to allow time for the college to review the petition to oust Hsia ahead of a university-level teachers’ evaluation committee meeting scheduled for Dec. 15.

Hsia was suspended by the university last week over administrative neutrality concerns regarding an ongoing investigation into the assault case.

Association chairman Tao Han (陶漢) said that Hsia had inflicted a “second injury” on the rape victim, a psychology major surnamed Wu (巫).

Tao questioned the veracity of insinuations Hsia made about Wu and a classmate, surnamed Wang (王) — the alleged rapist — having had sexual intercourse under the influence of “carnal desires” and alcohol available at an event in June last year.

Hsia has taken to Facebook several times after Wu last week published an apology to Hsia and the department on Facebook over the “malice and cruelty” society had directed at Hsia and the department.

Although Hsia praised Wu’s move, saying it was a voluntary act, netizens said that Wu could have been pressured to apologize.

The outcry triggered by Hsia’s remarks was aggravated by footage of a nine-hour “discussion,” which saw Hsia, former department chairman Ho Tung-hung (何東洪) and students putting Wu and her boyfriend, surnamed Chu (朱), on trial and chastising the couple over the “defamation” of the department since Chu first revealed the incident in May this year.

Netizens also accused the department of attempting to cover up the case and criticized its failure to protect Wu’s identity by asking her to attend the discussion, even though Hsia insisted that Wu made the decision to attend after consulting with her friends.

The petition had 285 signatures as of press time last night.

Fu Jen dean Hsia’s TV comments to be reviewed

By Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday confirmed that it has received multiple complaints over Fu Jen Catholic University College of Social Sciences dean Hsia Lin-ching’s (夏林清) comments about a victim of a sexual assault on a political talk show, adding that an independent committee would review the program before determining if any punitive measures should be taken against the television network.

NCC Chairwoman Nicole Chan (詹婷怡) said that Hsia discussed the case of a female student at the university being raped by a fellow student on ERA News’ political talk show FaceNews.

The program was aired as Typhoon Megi made landfall in the nation on Tuesday.

As well as receiving the complaints from the public, Chan said that NCC employees had also watched Hsia talk about the case on the program.

Chan said that Hsia’s comments could have violated the Personal Information Protection Act (個人資料保護法) and the Sexual Assault Crime Prevention Act (性侵害犯罪防治法).

She said the commission immediately contacted the network’s self-discipline committee and asked it to look into the incident. In the meantime, the commission would turn the case over to an independent committee to review the content of the program and determine if it had broken any regulations.

Hsia’s appearance on the talk show was deemed inappropriate by some media watchdog groups, as she was also a party in the case.

They said that Hsia should not have provided information that would reveal the identity of the victim in her conversations on the show.