Democracy pioneer Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) died on Friday last week at the age of 98. Many people have forgotten that Peng, as well as pursuing the independence and democratization of Taiwan, was also an authority on international law. He was a professor in the Department of Political Science at National Taiwan University (NTU) from 1957 to 1964, serving as the youngest-ever head of the department from 1961 to 1962.
However, he lost his teaching position for drafting the Declaration of Formosan Self-Salvation. Peng strove for freedom and democracy, but lost his professorship as a result. This was a blatant injustice, and articles that he later submitted to the media expressed his frustration over the matter.
On May 5, 2018, Peng wrote an article in the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) in which he talked about the controversy surrounding the election of NTU president Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) and made the following comments on fallacies relating to so-called university autonomy and academic freedom: “I dedicated my entire youth to studying and teaching at NTU, from student, assistant professor and overseas student through to associate professor, professor and even department chair. Yet when I was arrested and imprisoned for drafting a political proposal, the university authorities never supported me with a single word about ‘freedom of speech,’ ‘academic freedom’ or ‘university autonomy.’ On the contrary, I was dismissed from my post and expelled from the university. Yet now we hear Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] remnants shouting about ‘university autonomy’ — what a joke.”
‘INFERIOR’ ALUMNUS
In an earlier article that the Liberty Times published on April 17 of the same year, he said that the NTU authorities regarded him as a “disreputable and inferior” alumnus.
These words reveal Peng’s deep emotional attachment to NTU and show that he was still angry with NTU for dismissing him. After his arrest, the KMT authorities tried to talk him into teaching at a military academy or other party school, but Peng further angered them by insisting that he was only willing to teach at NTU. If he had submitted to the authoritarian system by teaching at another school, he might have been spared the hardship of imprisonment and house arrest, and he would not have had to abandon his family and flee into exile.
In view of all the contributions and sacrifices he made for NTU, the university should restore his reputation and title. The lecturers and professors who were dismissed following the “philosophy department incident,” which took place at NTU in 1972, were reinstated to their teaching positions in 1997, following an investigation.
NO ACTION TAKEN
However, regrettably, the NTU authorities have never held an investigation into the cancelation of Peng’s teaching position. NTU has in the past few years made some efforts with regard to transitional justice on its campus, such as demarking the Chen Wen-chen (陳文成) Incident Memorial Square in memory of the pro-democracy mathematician who was found dead on the campus in 1981.
The Ministry of Education and the NTU administration should swiftly restore Peng’s reputation and title, which were damaged during the Martial Law era. That would be a true example of “university autonomy.”
Michael Lin holds a master’s degree from National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of National Development.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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