Disciplinary ruling receives online backlash - Taipei Times

A school's disciplinary action against a teacher who pushed a student after alleged harassment has sparked an online backlash.

According to reports on Thursday by the Chinese-language United Daily News (UDN), a purported official document shared on the social platform Threads on Tuesday alleged an incident at an elementary school in which a student inappropriately touched a teacher, causing the teacher to reflexively push the student away, causing the student to hit a table.

The school's disciplinary committee ruled that the teacher violated regulations and that they would be reprimanded, despite accounts from witnesses that the student was to blame.

Photo: Yang Chin-cheng, Taipei Times

In response, Taipei City Councilor Hou Han-ting (侯漢廷) on Thursday criticized third-party investigators for what he called their complete disregard for the dignity of educators and for allowing schoolyard bullies to continue to have their way, the UDN report added.

The report by the school disciplinary committee was absurd, Hou was quoted as saying in a Facebook post, adding that the decision "is telling all bullies that they can get away with their actions at school, because teachers are deprived of their right to enact justifiable defense."

The committee members are paid about NT$30,000 for their duties, and if this was the result, their involvement was a waste of taxpayers' money, he said.

"The committee members, despite receiving hefty fees, issued a controversial ruling that appears to shield misbehaving students while punishing dedicated teachers," Hou said in the post.

"The [committee's] decision has thrown the education sector into disarray," he added, calling the committee members even more culpable than the student at the center of the incident.

High-school teacher Huang Yi-chung (黃益中) in a post on social media on Tuesday called on the school to disclose the names of the faculty members who attended the meeting and the committee members hired.

Internet responses to his post said that the decision was unacceptable, while others said the incident could be considered an act of sexual harassment.