The Control Yuan yesterday censured the Taipei Department of Education and Neihu Vocational High School for failing to promptly fire a teacher who has a history of sexually inappropriate conduct around students.
The Control Yuan said that it issued corrective measures after two of its members, Kao Feng-hsien (高鳳仙) and Yin Tso-chien (尹祚芊), conducted an inquiry revealing that school administrators and education officials “made serious mistakes” in handling the case.
The Taipei City Government and the school are to review those connected to the incident and discipline them if appropriate, it added.
The school’s gender equality committee in April 2016 found that the teacher, surnamed Huang (黃), acted inappropriately in six incidents that should be considered sexual harassment, the Control Yuan report said.
The teacher touched students’ buttocks and crotches, made sexual comments in class and talked about masturbation in a voice message sent to the class using a chat app, it said.
Although the committee found the infractions to be “of a serious nature,” the school failed to immediately suspend Huang and organize a review committee to decide whether he should be fired, as required by the Teachers’ Act (教師法), the report said.
Instead, the school put Huang on paid leave until September 2017, when other misconduct — also of a sexual nature — came to light, forcing the school to fire him and demand the NT$396,500 in wages he had received during his leave, it said.
When the school filed to discontinue Huang’s employment in May 2016, the school’s internal report had been amended to call his misconduct “not serious,” the Control Yuan said.
The department rejected the application and ordered the school to submit the original version of its report with the amended copy.
The school failed to comply with the order for about a year, and after it was asked to submit a new investigative report, turned in a document that was not correctly signed by the investigative committee members and only rectified the issue three months later, the Control Yuan said.
In the various iterations of the subsequent documents, the school changed the laws and regulations it said Huang had contravened in an “arbitrary” manner that indicated an “ignorance” of its legal responsibilities, it added.
The school initially said that Huang had committed “sexual harassment,” which was changed to “contravening relevant laws and regulations” and then to “causing bodily or mental harm to a student by bullying or corporal punishment,” in addition to displaying general ineptitude, it said.
In the March 2017 report, school officials asked to give Huang two minor demerits and not renew his contract, instead of dismissing him as it should have, the report said.
Article 31 of the Act of Governing the Appointment of Educators (教育人員任用條例) clearly states that teachers contravening any of the laws it mentions “shall” be reported, dismissed or discharged, it said, adding that the school was remiss in its duties.
Later, a separate internal inquiry by the school implicated Huang in two other sexual harassment incidents, including tying up a student in a sadomasochistic display, it said, adding that this resulted in his dismissal in 2017.
That the six earlier incidents of sexual harassment led to two demerits, while two later incidents resulted in dismissal showed that the school had no consistent standards for disciplining teachers, the Control Yuan said.
The department was also at fault for inadequate oversight and giving bad advice to the school, such as telling school officials that punishing Huang concurrently for his actions in the two different investigations could constitute double jeopardy.
On the department’s advice, the school dismissed Huang for the incidents in the later investigation, while throwing out the earlier cases, which was in error, it said.
[Taipei Times, 2019-05-17]
