Should NTHU’s president resign?

National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) president John Kao (高為元) was invited for a job interview in Hawaii just three days after being confirmed in May for a second term at NTHU.

Academic and industrial leaders requested his resignation.

In the US, university presidents serve at the pleasure of the university’s board of trustees or board of regents. Unless an employment contract explicitly protects them, they can be terminated at any time without cause under at-will employment doctrines. If the board finds out a president is interviewing elsewhere, it can legally terminate their presidency simply by citing a “loss of confidence” in their long-term commitment.

However, the internal academic affairs councils of universities in Taiwan generally do not have the direct, unilateral legal authority to fire a sitting president.

The University Act (大學法) stipulates that a president can only be removed for major misconduct if a high threshold — usually a one-third petition and a two-thirds majority vote by the council — is met. The case would be forwarded to the Ministry of Education to officially execute a dismissal.

There is legal precedent in Taiwan for the ministry to remove a president directly. In 2001, Peng Tso-kwei (彭作奎) of National Chung Hsing University was removed after the National Science Council confirmed that an article he coauthored had been plagiarized.

In 2005, Huang Kuan-tsae (黃光彩) of National Taiwan Normal University was removed only eight months after taking office due to inadequate credentials.

In 2018, the ministry refused to ratify the election of National Taiwan University (NTU) president-elect Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) for 11 months due to conflict-of-interest allegations regarding his role as an independent board director of Taiwan Mobile.

Pro-Kuan alliances argued that delaying his appointment violated university autonomy, which was countered by the North America Taiwanese Professors’ Association in a public statement that true institutional autonomy is warranted only when universities rigorously follow baseline regulations and maintain transparency rather than bypassing them under the guise of independence.

The association compared a 2017 conference paper coauthored by Kuan and Chen to a 2016 master’s thesis by a graduate student of Chen’s, finding that Kuan and Chen’s paper copied from the student’s thesis, and that plagiarism was unequivocally committed.

The standoff grew so politically charged that three consecutive education ministers resigned over the issue before Kuan’s position was approved.

It is common for people to search for new jobs, so the only crime Kao committed was his naivety to accommodate a job interview, to which he was invited. Should that not be considered a badge of honor?

The University of Hawaii at Manoa generally has a lower academic ranking globally than NTHU. Moreover, even though Hawaii is a paradise, it faces fires, volcanic eruptions and flooding, and also has a high cost of living.

Kao cannot have been serious about moving to Hawaii and his explanation of simple curiosity appears to suffice.

NTU might have won the battle over Kuan’s appointment, but it lost the war by forever tarnishing its reputation.

Kuan’s alleged plagiarism should have disqualified him as a professor at NTU, let alone being promoted to president.

Justice will not be served if Kao is asked to resign while Kuan was approved.

Kao has in general been highly regarded in his running of NTHU. It is vitally important to retain capable and moral leaders to help Taiwan, instead of terminating their services over trivial matters.

Let naivety, forgiveness and kindness be still acceptable in academics.

James J.Y. Hsu is a retired professor of theoretical physics and a former president of the North America Taiwanese Professors’ Association.