By Jerome A. Cohen
This is a helpful report on the Shiu Ka-chun case. Hong Kong Baptist University recently told Shiu, an opposition lawmaker who was involved in the 2014 Occupy Central protests, that it would not renew his lecturing contract, with no reasons given and no opportunity to be heard. I know nothing about Shui but sympathize with his comments about HKBU’s refusal to renew his teaching contract. He described the decision as “political persecution.”
Activists Lee Wing-tat, Chan Kin-man, Benny Tai, Chu Yiu-ming, Tanya Chan and Shiu Ka-chun arrive at the court for sentencing in Hong Kong in April 2019. Reuters
Indeed, no opportunity for him to ask why or present his case? No waiting until the judicial appeals process on his criminal conviction for participating in the Occupy Central movement has run its course? No reasons for HKBU’s decision, even though it is a publicly funded university? The university is hiding behind the shameful excuse that it is remaining silent in order to protect the “privacy” of the harmed teacher, while hiding its reasons from the very person whose privacy is ostensibly being protected. “Privacy” is a pathetic excuse for the public university to hide behind.
Simultaneously, pro-democracy activist Professor Benny Tai was fired today from Hong Kong University by a HKU council vote of 18-2. Note that Nathaniel Lei, an undergraduate representative on the council who spoke out against the decision, pointed out that if Tai wins his appeal, the council decision “may be reviewed.” We should not hold our breath, of course, that the appeal will be successful or that success might lead to reversal of the academic decision. Additionally, how should we interpret the failure of Vice-Chancellor Zhang Xiang to vote? A gesture of opposition to the council action? Or of impartiality or political paralysis? Note the hypocritical discretion of the university council in identifying the matter solely as “a personnel issue concerning a teaching staff member.” What a joke to claim that this is purely an internal matter and that outsiders should respect the university’s autonomy! Cheers for the council’s endorsement of “impartial due process”! And recall the rejection by the council of the nomination of former law Dean Johannes Chan, a great person, for higher university responsibility!
For me these cases are a matter of special interest because of the contrast it presents with my own experience at Harvard during the height of the Vietnam war controversy in America. In 1968, I believe, the TODAY show asked me to debate with Assistant Secretary of State Averell Harriman the right of the US air force to bomb Hanoi hospitals that reportedly were plainly marked with Red Crosses on the roof. Harriman himself and some wealthy Harvard alumni reacted strongly to various university authorities the next day about my criticisms of the US government. However, Harvard President Derek Bok told me to go on doing what I thought was right. He did not abstain!