Pulling out would send wrong message on academic freedoms, says Johannes Chan
JOYCE NGjoyce.ng@scmp.com
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 02 August, 2015, 5:05am
UPDATED : Sunday, 02 August, 2015, 5:05am
Professor Johannes Chan Man-mun says to pull out of the running now would be to give up the fight for academic freedom. Photo: Felix Wong
The liberal scholar at the centre of a political row at the city's top university says he will not withdraw his application for a key management role.
To pull out of running for pro-vice-chancellor at the University of Hong Kong would be tantamount to giving up the fight for academic freedom, Professor Johannes Chan Man-mun said yesterday.
"If it was only about [my] personal development, I would have quit already," Chan said on RTHK's Letter to Hong Kong.
"But the row we face is a challenge to the university's academic freedom and institutional autonomy. To withdraw now would have a chilling effect. It would also mean abandoning the pursuit for academic freedom and autonomy."
A search committee has put the former law dean, considered to be a political moderate, forward for the job. But HKU's governing council has deferred the appointment, prompting suggestions of political interference.
Chan has said he was told as long ago as December that he might get the job pending the council's endorsement.
But in January, pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po ran a series of attacks on Chan, saying he "meddled in politics" and indulged his colleague Benny Tai Yiu-ting in planning last year's Occupy sit-ins.
In June and again last week, the council voted to defer discussion of the appointment to "wait" for the supervising role of provost to be filled first. Government-appointed members supported the delay while staff and student representatives opposed it.
Chan earlier said some council members had "more than once" tried to persuade him - through a middleman - to withdraw his application.
Yesterday, he dismissed allegations he "indulged" Tai, saying he stepped down from the deanship in June last year and had been out of town for most of the time since.
The council will meet next month to decide the next step amid a public outcry. Its meeting on Tuesday descended into discord as students invaded the meeting room in protest.
Meanwhile, Dr Cheung Kie-chung, who represents teaching staff on the council and opposed the deferral, said he felt "helpless about a bunch of people so adamant on an unreasonable idea".
Fellow member Man Cheuk-fei, who is understood to have voted in favour of deferral in the first meeting, said the storming of the meeting was unacceptable. But he noted there were outsiders mixing in with students.
Executive Council member Bernard Chan, a former chairman of Lingnan University's council, said a publicly-funded university must have outside members on its governing body. He also said it was normal to find politics at play in an institution.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1845849/liberal-scholar-wont-withdraw-application-be
