Volume 7 Number 1 Spring 2001

PALE Journal


TABLE OF CONTENTS
(click on a title to page down to the article)

Editor's Note

FEATURE: THE LIFE AND LINGUISTICS OF GREGORY CLARK


UPDATES ON CASES REPORTED IN PREVIOUS PALE JOURNALS

THE VAN DRESSER CASE COMES TO AN END
1) On the Employment Rights of Repeatedly Renewed Contract Workers
By Steven van Dresser
2) "Part-time Faculty Compensation and Benefits" Resolution passed at American Federation of Teachers Convention 2000

THE GWEN GALLAGHER CASE AT ASAHIKAWA UNIVERSITY
1) Feb 2000 District Court decision By Michael Fox, reprinted in full from JALT's The Language Teacher Magazine
2) Jan 2001 High Court defeat By Gwen Gallagher
3) Internet exposure of a character assassin
From public-domain mailing lists
4) ARTICLE: "Japanese Court Is Unswayed by American Professor's Accusation of Anti-Foreign Bias"
By Alan Brender, from The Chronicle of Higher Education
5) The Appeal to Japan's Supreme Court By Gwen Gallagher

THE PREFECTURAL UNIVERSITY OF KUMAMOTO DISMISSALS CASE
Lobbying the Ministry of Education, and A Public Appeal
By Farrell Cleary, Kirk Masden, and Hanada Masanori

ADDITIONAL ARTICLE OF INTEREST:
"Culture and Unrealistic Expectations Challenge American Campuses in Japan"
By Beth McMurtrie, The Chronicle of Higher Education

NB: HELP/PALE has a discussion mailing list so that people can be updated and contribute in real time. To subscribe, visit www.topica.com/lists/PALE, or email PALE-subscribe@topica.com. To post messages to the list, email PALE@topica.com, and message archives www.topica.com/lists/PALE/ Journal Back Issues are archived at www.debito.org/PALEJournals.html

Editor's Note

Welcome to the new millennium, and this time for real. This issue, as always long overdue, heralds a number of changes. The first is PALE, "Professionalism, Administration, and Leadership in Education", which was chosen many years ago by co-founder (and current JALT President) Thom Simmons for its more archaic meaning of "stake or boundary" (cf. "beyond the pale"). However, not everyone was able to get beyond the milquetoast aftertaste of the acronym. This year we stirred our bowl of alphabet soup and decided to change our SIG Group name to HELP, "Help with Education and Labor Policies". Fear not, we are still the same retinue of researchers, serving you by blending the controversial cocktail of educational and employment issues. Provided your editor's schedule permits and your research submissions keep rolling in, we will still keep putting out issues that are germane to the times.

The second name change is that of your editor, the Author Formerly Known as Prince, er, Dave Aldwinckle. With his becoming a naturalized Japanese citizen in October 2000, he has taken a Japanese name, Arudou Debito (ăŐ ¶oÆl). He can't wait to start asking you if you can eat natto and use chopsticks. Okay, kidding. He is still, of course, the same old editor with those standpoints and writing styles.

Let's talk about this issue. We open with an intriguing article about an intriguing person--one very important to the future of non-Japanese in Japan: Gregory Clark. We then continue our years of follow-through with articles updating the van Dresser Case (case closed), the Gallagher Case (the case that won't stay closed), and the Prefectural University of Kumamoto Case (the case that has been blown wide open). Background on these cases is, as always, in our archives at http://www.debito.org/PALEJournals.html. In between we add some segues: a resolution on preferred treatment for part-time educators, the slow death of transplanted US universities in Japan, and issues of identity and professionality when making claims about academic qualification and employability on the internet. There are as always many eye-opening and important articles in the HELP/PALE Journal, and we hope you feel it was worth the wait. We also hope that if you enjoyed this issue that you might consider telling others about the work we are doing. For as we witnessed in our well-attended meetings and convocations at JALT Shizuoka last autumn 2000, there are a growing number of people who share the same concerns about Japan's future as a place for secure employment and education with integrity.

Arudou Debito / Dave Aldwinckle
HELP/PALE Journal Editor

HELP JOURNAL OF PROFESSIONAL ISSUES
VOL 7 NO 1 SPRING 2001

FEATURE
THE LIFE AND LINGUISTICS OF GREGORY CLARK


INTRODUCTION
Why Gregory Clark matters in the field of language teaching
Compiled by Arudou Debito, HELP Journal Editor

Gregory Clark is man quite renowned in Japan. His speaking tours and publications on the "uniqueness" of Japanese society and culture are well-attended and read, and his frequent Japan Times columns are thought-provoking and controversial. He is one of the few (if not the first) non-Japanese appointed as president of a Japanese university in modern times, has sat upon government deliberation councils (shingikai) advising important policymakers, and has always been a force to reckon with in debate arenas. He is, by most measures, a brilliant, outspoken, and successful foreigner, well-respected in a society that often does not know what to do with overt brilliance, outspokenness, or foreigners in general.

Why is Gregory Clark the featured topic of this HELP Journal? What does he have to do with language teaching or professionalism? Because his controversial views on language learning have been the subject of heated debate. He developed the concept of "Deep Listening", a process of intense listening and "imitation" of language, reinforced by tasks such as transcribing the speech on paper. More specifics below, but this theory has been derided by some as facile, as it seems to assume that "if you watch enough soccer, you can become Pele". To many linguists, language learning involves more than mainly passive listening. Meanwhile, Gregory Clark has made decisions at his university about English language education which are considered by some to be radical. Two noteworthy newspaper articles to illustrate:


COLLEGE TO DROP ENGLISH IN ENTRANCE EXAMS
from 1996 Daily Yomiuri article
(sorry, date unknown since Japanese newspaper English archives are very temporary--Ed)

At the suggestion of its non-Japanese president, a Tokyo college has decided that from 1997 it will drop English from the list of subjects required in its entrance examination and provide intensive schooling in the English language instead in an effort to fight "warped English language education in Japan."

Attention will be focused on whether the experiment will influence other colleges and universities to reform their policy concerning instruction in the English language.

The new program is led by self-professed "language master" and former professor at Sofia University, Gregory Clark, 59, who became president of Tama University in September. A private college
of management and information studies in Tama, the university has been accepting students who pass one of three entrance exam courses since it opened in 1989.

In course A, examinees choose either social studies or mathematics, as well as being required to be tested in Japanese and foreign languages.

Basic academic ability is assessed in course B through short essay writing and other subjects including foreign languages, while the students' ability in mathematics and foreign languages are examined
in course C, in line with national entrance exams held at the National Center for University Entrance Examination.

Under the new system, however, foreign languages will be no longer be an obligatory exam subject in the course A from 1997. Examinees will take the exam in Japanese language and one other subject to be selected from foreign languages, social studies, mathematics and science.

Clark, a British-born Australian, said he mastered foreign languages by "decoding" languages while working as a diplomat and journalist. Clark said he was able to learn Japanese and Russian by
listening to the languages and not by the more usual method of using textbooks.

This method is very different from the way English is taught simply to pass entrance examinations in Japanese schools.

Clark decided to remove English language from the list of examination subjects and add an intensive English program to the curriculum. Students will be obliged to earn eight credits in English, twice the number presently required, which will be provided for their four-year period at university.

A new teaching method based on Clark's experimental "decoding" learning technique is also to be incorporated into the teaching program.

Recently colleges and universities are diversifying their entrance examination format and English is not always a required entrance exam subject.

An official of a major preparatory school, however, said many colleges and universities are reducing the number of subjects it requires examinees to take in order to secure more applicants now that the population of 18-year-olds, the age at which most Japanese apply to colleges, is decreasing. "It is unusual, though, for a college to stop testing English ability at the entrance exam stage and teach the language intensively after the applicant has entered," the official said.

Some observers say that Tama University adopted the novel system solely to attract more applicants and that students will not necessarily improve their English skill after they enter the university.

Clark modified the list of required exam subjects for 1997 that had been announced at the end of last year.

He said he did so in the sense of attaching importance to foreign language education, adding that it is "dead" English that is in use in the current Japanese education system. "The more you study English, overemphasizing the memory for the sake of tests, the less conversational ability you will have," he said. "No wonder that makes you feel not like studying English, especially if you're an excellent student."

Tama University has carried out several educational reforms such as the introduction of systems in which students assess professors' teaching skills and truant students are advised to leave school.

DAILY YOMIURI 1996 ARTICLE ENDS


The Daily Yomiuri 45th Anniversary Special
INTERVIEW WITH GREGORY CLARK IN 2000
(sorry, date unknown since Japanese newspaper English archives are again very temporary--Ed)
By Kayoko Redford, Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

Gregory Clark, president of Tama University and a member of Education Minister Hirofumi Nakasone's advisory panel on how to improve English education in schools, discussed in an interview with The Daily Yomiuri problems and ways to improve the nation's English education system. Clark, who has more than 20 years teaching experience in Japan, has taught himself three foreign languages.

Daily Yomiuri: What is your general opinion about English education in Japan?

Clark: I think studying English for six years--three at middle school and the other three at high school--is too long. Studying English for university entrance examinations makes a negative impact on students as it makes them allergic to English and hinders them from developing their speaking ability.

What type of English education system do you recommend?

Ideally, you could begin at primary school and continue to study at middle school with the emphasis on speaking, listening and simple reading. Students could obtain qualifications, such as Eiken or TOEFL, that include listening. Alternatively, a national exam that is sufficient to test students' basic speaking and listening ability could be made.

Do you mean high school students do not have to study English?

At the high school level, students who really want to study English or who hope to major in English literature at universities should study it.

How about at the university level?

I strongly recommend the introduction of a double major system at universities, which has already been introduced in countries such as Australia and the United States. In Australia, particularly, economics and Japanese is a very popular combination. The system allows students who really want to study English seriously to study in a concentrated manner for one or two years, as the system is now, or possibly even for four years as part of their double major programs.

English is difficult for Japanese, and difficult languages should be taught only at university. Eighteen is an ideal age to learn a language as they have the proper motivation and their brain still can absorb a lot quickly. Motivation is very important.

Would you recommend at the Education Minister's panel meetings that English education at high schools be eliminated?

I believe the discussion is very much like the debate on entrance exams. They keep arguing about small details of the exams, such as whether to require interviews or essay writing, whereas, in fact, they should be arguing whether they need entrance exams or not, over the whole system. It is the same way in English. I myself in the committee am trying to push the discussion more into considering the whole system. For example, whether they really have to study English at high school.

You discussed the English education system. What do you think about the teaching techniques?

I advocate very strongly putting the emphasis on deep listening because it can be done on one's own time, not school time, at one's own desire--you are not forced--and you have a specific challenge. Listening to a tape without a text is a very, very effective way of learning a language.

There is too much emphasis on conversation. Because Japanese are shy, a lot of them do not like to speak. Listening is far more important as an ability than speaking. You cannot have a conversation unless you listen. It is the basis of speaking ability. If you listen and remember, then you can speak effectively. It's much easier for students to talk about what they have listened to and studied. At my university, we concentrate very much on listening.

What do you think about the current English education method that puts so much emphasis on communicative teaching methods?

The argument is always between communicative English and reading and writing. Communicative English is not bad, but it is expensive (because of the need to hire native speakers) and the least effective way of nurturing speaking and listening abilities. As I said, listening is far more important. Everyone thinks that listening is something that happens naturally. In fact, it is the most difficult and crucial skill. That is what children do for two years before they speak.

Copyright 2000 The Yomiuri Shimbun

DAILY YOMIURI 2000 CLARK INTERVIEW ENDS


Now, let's return to the methodology. Looking at websites which promote the Deep Listening method:
www2.gol.com/users/jconcept/
www2.gol.com/users/jconcept/clark.html

both of these sites were off-line at the time your editor checked them on March 8, 2000, as this journal was going to press. However, a search through google:

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www2.gol.com/users/jconcept/clark.html+Clark+Deep+Listening&hl=en

still had information available in cache. Reproducing:



Japan Concept Incorporated

(Photo of Professor Clark)

Professor Clark's Concept

Building on his fluency in 7 languages, and through long consideration and personal involvement in language study, Professor Clark has determined the pitfalls of most traditional approaches to language learning and..... the solution to this problem.

Professor Clark believes that it is virtually impossible to become truly fluent in any language by using the
traditional translation and grammar memorization methods of language learning.

Therefore Professor Clark has developed the concept of "deep listening", or in Japanese, "Ango Kaidoku". The concept in simplest terms teaches that a person who learns languages naturally and simply, does not study grammar or learn to translate the various words or phrases. Rather, a person learns by listening to and imitating the music of a language.

The result is a deep imprint on the learners subconscious mind that is reinforced by the exercise of writing the transcribed words down on paper. It is in fact a process of discovery of the music of English including all the essential language components such as rhythm, intonation, and syntax in one concentrated auditory shower.

The Clark Systems a dedicated system of cassette tape listenings including:

  • interesting and provocative current monthly news from Reuter-Sun News.
  • the tapes are given to the student each month so that the information is always timely and engaging.
  • the tapes are produced at normal speed in professional American English and feature useful vocabulary phrases and idioms.


The student learns to feel "the music of the language" rather than trying to memorize words and phrases one by one.

Japan Concept's Role

Japan Concept is a Business English Consulting Company with a tradition of designing specialized English language training programs for companies and individuals.

Japan Concept is always eager to bring new ideas and methods to help our learners maximize their time in
acquiring the skills to use business English as a professional language tool. In this new information age it is widely recognized that spoken English language proficiency is essential to international business success. With this in mind Japan Concept has adapted Professor Clarks' deep listening system to meet today's business needs.

In class the Japan Concept Instructor, acting as a mentor, guides the learner group through a series of learning activities including review, vocabulary drills, question and answer, and learner directed discussions.

The goal of our training is to motivate the learner to use the target language in new and imaginative contexts and to inspire the learners to give their considered opinions/interpretations on the news topic being discussed.

Japan Concept is successfully using this system to accelerate its clients English learning process. We look forward to discussing these exciting prospects for ESL fluency at your earliest convenience.

Extra!
Japan Concept Announces Breakthrough Programs!

In Groundbreaking News Recently, Japan Concept Corporation announced exciting new options in English and Business Training.

The announcement reportedly led to widespread panic among competitors, and when contacted were unable comment in full sentences. One famous English School English School owner in Omotesando who wished to remain anonymous was quoted as saying, "Gol, major bummer..I gotta tell my boyfriend".

To learn more about new courses and seminars being offered by Japan Concept just choose your favorite language!
Nihongo English

Japan Concept Corporation
Asahi Hiroo Mansion Room 216
1-11-5-Hiroo, Shibuya Ku, Tokyo 150
Tel. 03 5423 0531
Fax. 03 5423 0580
email. jconcept@savant.or.jp


WEBSITE ENDS


Now let's turn our attention from the methodology and business aspects to the person involved:

E/P>

"OUR OTHER MAN IN JAPAN"
Courtesy of The Australian Magazine
16th October 1993, Edition 1. pp 26-41
(used with permission of The Australian Magazine
click here to see actual text of permission granted, dated Dec 19, 2000)


He isn't our ambassador, but he'd like to be. Invariably, Gregory Clark is the Australian the Japanese turn to for advice about themselves and other issues.
What riles him is that Australians don't.
BY RICHARD McGREGOR

FULL PAGE PHOTO shows Clark smiling and standing in a park, with a young Japanese girl in full Seijinshiki-style kimono in the background taking a photo of something off-camera.

Caption: "Embittered expatriate Gregory Clark: 'Even allowing for the vast amounts of ego, it's just absurd that an Australian who has made it in Japan, and who sits on government committees, gets ignored.'"

Gregory Clark beams: "Just pulled in a biggie!" he tells me as he puts down the phone. We are at Tokyo Airport about to jump on a plane for Osaka where Clark is giving a lecture to a group of Japanese executives. The "biggie" is an invitation to give another talk--to one of Japan's big business bodies. It's nice to see him smiling, because he can be fearsome when he's not.

Once, in the middle of a cordial argument while having a drink, I suggested he stop complaining about one of the many decades-old issues that still obsess him. That evening, it was the way he was run out of the Australian Foreign Affairs department for opposing the Vietnam war. It was as though someone had just shot puce-colored dye into his veins. His neck bulged, and he slammed the table. But a few mintues later, he was his charming self. Clark can be like that--especially when you get him on the subject of Australia.

Ex-Canberra bureaucrat, ex-journalist and ex-diplomat, Clark, 57, has lived in Japan in a sort of self-imposed exile from Australia since the late seventies. He teaches advanced Japanese to foreigners at a university in Tokyo, which is nice because it allows him to put the title of Professor in front of his name. It helps that he speaks advanced Japanese, too. He writes for up-scale newspapers and magazines in Japan and around the world, including an occasional column for The Australian; is setting up a management centre on 12 hectares of land he owns on the edge of Tokyo; and, a few times a week, gives lectures telling the Japanese in their own language about their unique "tribal" or "village-like" culture, at anything from $2500 to $6500 a time.

Clark has still had time over the years to pen the odd short book on different topics, sit on a range of Japanese government committees, and collect the rent on a residential property he owns in the heart of Tokyo, where even in the middle of a calamitous collapse, prices are embarassingly high by world standards. Prices are relative, of course, depending on when you get into the market and when you get out, but Clark got in early--well before the boom.

Add that to the proceeds from the occasional tickle on the Tokyo stockmarket--"the best way is to watch it, and short it," he confides, referring to the practice of selling stock in anticipation of a price fall before buying again. And you can see that Japan has been good to him.

So Gregory Clark is rich and successful, and by a long-shot the most famous Australian in Japan. But is he happy? Not really, which is where Australia comes in.

Greg Clark is the first of nine children sired by Sir Colin Clark, a famous economist and statistician who is credited with measuring and describing concepts in the thirties that are part of everyday economic jargon these days. While working with one of the centuries most influential economists, John Maynard Keynes, at Cambridge University, Colin Clark coined and refined such terms as gross national product, and primary, secondary, and tertiary industry.

He came to Australia in 1937 and worked in a variety of government jobs, most priminently as head of the Treasury in the Queensland Government. He had stints back at Oxford and at Chicago University before returning to Australia where he died in 1989. "He became a Santamaria fanatic--you know, 25 acres and a pig and that sort of thing," says his son. "Except he had 10 acres and nine children."

Colin Clark was also the subject of a thesis just after the war by a young Japanese economist called Kiichi Miyazawa, who then rose through the bureaucratic and political ranks to become prime minister, a connection that hasn't hurt his son since he arrived in Tokyo. Japan's leading conservative daily, The Yomiuri Shimbun, also listed Clark as an academic contact of the country's new Prime Minister, Morihiro Hosokawa.

Greg Clark joined the department of Foreign Affairs in 1956, studied Mandarin Chinese as part of language training in Hong Kong, and was later posted to the then Soviet Union where he remembers Canberra "made me go to explain to them all the time what terrible atrocities the Vietcong were committing". This period, plus later study in Japan, has given him three foreign languages--Russian, Mandarin, and Japanese--which he speaks and reads in varying degrees of skill. In Japanese, he is virtually fluent.

These days, Australia is a subject you ohnly have to prod Clark with very lightly to get him going. He has a list of grievances which goes on and on: starting with victimisation when he opposed the Vietnam war and China policy, to the mistreatment he says he recevied while working as a bureaucrat in the Whitlam government, and finally, worst of all in his eyes, the way he claims he has been ignored by the academics and sometimes blackballed by diplomats in charge of the Japan industry in Australia.

"I just think it's a tragedy--it's a tragedy for me, and a tragedy for Australia," he says. "Even allowing for the vast amounts of [his own] ego, it's just absurd that an Australian, who has made it in Japan, and who sits on Government committees, and who would be known by every second person, gets ignored. It's just totally ratshit."

Clark's big falling out with those around him was over his opposition to the Vietnam war. "The establishment turned the big guns on me," he says, including, he claims, the pioneer of post-war Australia-Japan trade, Sir John Crawford. That was followed by a stint at the Australian National University in Canberra, where he aborted his Ph.D with only a few months to go to take up a job as this newspaper's correspondent in Tokyo in 1969. Clark's patron at this time was John Menadue, then general manager of News Limited, who got him the job in Tokyo, and then brought him home to work with him when Menadue became head of the Prime Minister's department in the Whitlam government.

The Canberra experience ended badly. Clark felt he was sidelined by Menadue and let down by Whitlam. After the government fell, he burnt his bridges by penning an article for the National Times savagely critical of the Whitlam government, and returned to Japan to join his long-time partner, Yasuko Tano, and their two chldren and to rebuild his career as a writer and teacher.

Two years later, Menadue was back in Tokyo as Australian Ambassador, and according to his friends, was shocked at Clark's reaction. "When John became ambassador, that sent Greg into a real frenzy whenever you'd mention him, and he wrote several articles disparaging the embassy because nobody in the diplomatic part of it could speak Japanese," says one man who knows both Clark and Menadue. Clark maintains he never attacked Menadue personally. Menadue declined to comment for this article.

Clark's relationship with the Foreign Affairs establishment was soured even further by an episode that occurred when he launched his book about Japan's "tribal" society in the late seventies. As an example of Japan's "tribalism" and "groupism", he recounted how Japanese journalists based in Australia had collectively ignored a report published in local newspapers in the mid-seventies about how our intelligence agencies were eavesdropping on Japanese diplomatic traffic out of Canberra.

"By the way," Clark recalls telling a Newsweek reporter in Tokyo when he was promoting the book, "you might want to look at the bottom of page 138" --where the incident was briefly mentioned. The result was a large story in the international news magazine, with a headline about an "ex-diplomat" revealing that Australia spied on its largest trading partner. Canberra was not amused, and Clark was put on the Australian Embassy's black list in Tokyo.

"It was humiliating and degrading to have these ASIO types sitting in the embassy--these are uneducated people who don't speak Japanese--deciding that I was a threat to Australian security," he says. A former intelligence officer who served in the embassy in Japan confirmed that Clark had been put on a loose sort of "black list" restricting formal contacts because, the officer says, "of the narrowmindedness and sheer bastardry of senior officers in Canberra."

At the same time, Clark was steaming over getting what he says was the cold shoulder from an organisation he says he helped set up in the early seventies, the Australia-Japan Research Centre at the ANU. The centre, which is important and influential in Japan studies and policy in Australia, was just beginning to flourish under its founder, Professor Peter Drysdale, who still heads it today. "I have never had any disagreement with Drysdale," says Clark, "but I was completely excluded, and at the time, it hurt. Universities are not set up to do this sort of thing. Drysdale is not known in Japan, but I have sat on all these committees. I mean, what the hell is going on!"

Drysdale and Clark are a study in contrasts. The former, a low-profile mainstream academic who speaks only a little Japanese but has good contacts in the country, has been crucial in formulating Australia's regional trade and Japan policies. Clark, an outspoken maverick with few self-censoring mechanisms, has been eagerly, but not always easily, ignored by Canberra's policymakers.

Professor Drysdale, contacted in Canberra, declined to respond to Clark's comments, but the Emeritus Professor of Economics at the ANU, Heinz Arndt, who supervised Clark's Ph.D at the ANU until his student quit "to my utter disgust" just before he finished, remembers the problem this way. "Drysdale and the whole group were not happy about bringing him into the project, partly because he was in Tokyo, and partly because of differences in approaches and temperament. In other words, he is an extremely difficult person who things that anybody who disagrees with him is a complete idiot."

Professor Arndt is not the only one who puts Clark's problems down to his temperament. "Greg is a peculiar bloke--he has a knack of rubbing people up the wrong way," says one person who knows him well. "That's not something that just blossomed when he went back to Japan, and it's always made it difficult to make people feel loyal to him. Greg does not have many loyal friends because he does not earn them. His assessment of himself is not a universally accepted one either. It would be difficult to mention any job from prime minister of the world down that Greg does not feel he could admirably fill."

"Anyone who competes on the same turf is a bit of a hate figure," says another friend of Clark's.

But just as a chill set in for Clark in Australia, a new day dawned in Japan. Clark's theories about Japan's "village-like" society proved to be a big hit when delivered in Japanese by a foreigner. The lucrative speaking circuit opened up, and for the past 15-odd years he has toured the country giving different and updated versions of a similar lecture to business, industry and community associations. In a society with the depth, organisation and thirst for information of Japan, there is a rich vein to be mined--he has been to the city of Nagasaki, for example, about 16 times to talk to different groups.

Give up to 150 to 200 lectures a year, as he does, and it becomes a rewarding occupation. The fee depends on whom he is addressing, he tells me as we get on the plane to take us to Osaka where he is going to speak to executives from the iron and steel industries. Today rates as a middle-ranking engagement--an afternoon's work for Y400,000 plus expenses, or about $5,500. "The people you screw are the companies, who are putting it on for the benefit of their customers," he says. "the whole thing is purely commerical, so there is no hesitation in insisting on the full fee."

The speech I hear him deliver to the steel executives group in Osaka is witty, fluid and delivered with a practiced panache and a stream of punch lines. The audience loves it. His host, Shizuka Hayashi of Daido Steel, tells me later that Clark's "tribal" theories make lots of sense. "Professor Clark said the Japanese tend to cooperate when they are working in small groups. This was particularly good to hear because this is exactly what we are trying to do in our companies and workplaces," he says. And what did he think of the Y400,000 price tag? "Well, to tell the truth," he sayss, "it was more than we expected, but it was worth it."

As any foreigner who comes to Japan realises, there is a fortune to be made in telling the Japanese about themselves. "I should have got in on this racket before," Clark remembers thinking when he first realised what he had tapped into. "I would get up in the morning and pinch myself about what was happening. Suddenly, I was in a situation where nobody can touch me. It was night turned into day."

Clark says later: "For a nation not to have any fundamental guiding principle--that's what a tribe is. I am telling them you have to get rid of the kabuki and ikebana shit. You have to get people involved in this society, and people will get to appreciate Japan for what it is." He continues: "The gaijin [foreigner] who comes here, and can speak with authority, gets far more attention than he deserves--because in this society, people can't get up and say all sorts of things."

*******************************

Clark can get violently indignant about how people in Australia don't recognise his achievements in Japan, including sitting on numerous special government advisory committees--the so-called shinigikai [sic]. Last year, for example, he was nominated by then prime minister Miyazawa to sit on a shinigikai on the future of the Japanese economy, but complains that nobody in the embassy ever contacted him to tap into what he had learnt. But in the next breath, he can drip with cynicism about the same same system, and the opportunities it offers people like him. "They are not inviting you [onto these committees] for your wisdom, you know," he tells me at one stage. "They are asking you because of your celebrity status, so you have to keep it up."

Clark's message is especially value-added for a Japanese audience because his message is that Japan is unique is what many Japanese love to hear. "Unique?" he says. "I happen to agree with them. It does not do any harm [to be invited to speak], but I happen to believe it."

Other see Clark's proselytising of his "tribal" theories in a much more insidious light. One sharp critic is Dutch journalist Karel van Wolferen, the author of the iconoclastic 1989 best-seller The Enigma of Japanese Power. Van Wolferen's book says ordinary Japanese are rendered powerless by something he calls "The System", which consists of a raft of unofficial social controls not regulated by law, or subject to genuine political discussion. When the book came out, Clark said it was full of errors, and denounced it in a magazine as being venomously anti-Japanese and Eurocentric to the point of almost being racist.

Clark, van Wolferen responded, is a "foreign servant of The System" and the committees he serves on are there just to give an "illusion of democracy". "Whether intentionally or not," he wrote in the Gekkan Asahi magazine, "Mr Clark reassures Japanese readers all the time that it is true what they have always been told; that they are unique in a special way because of having constructed an advanced civilisation on 'primary group' values. This is certainly the kind of thing that Japanese occupying high positions in the institutions that share power want everybody to hear. I write many Japnese do not like to hear because it is the opposite: that consensus is, in fact, rare and difficult to achieve, that there is much intimidation in Japanese society, that it is much less cosy than the village-type society imagined and idealised by Mr Clark. So he reassures Japanese people that a Westerner like me who says such things is Western-centric and hates Japan... Another reason why I say that Mr Clark serves The System is that what he writes is only for Japanese consumption.

"No-one among those many foreigners who are interested in Japan, but who cannot read Japanese, has been able to consider his ideas in detail, because the book that has made him famous in Japan has never come out in any other language." Ouch! Being a Japanese specialist is a bruising business. But if Clark is a "foreign servant of The System", then not all of the bureaucrats realize it. Clark has enraged the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, for example, by pursuing a campaign critical of its claim against Russia for the return of the four small islands to the north of Japan seized by Stalin at the end of the war. Clark's assertion in numerous articles in the Japanese and international media that Tokyo gave up its claim years ago has been highly effective, something that can be gauged from how apoplectic some Japanese diplomats go at the mention of his name.

These battles get Clark attention in Japan, but they are not the ones closest to his heart. They remain at home. The mismanagement of the Australian economy and industry policy is one recurring theme. Canaberra's fatal attraction to free trade is another. Both, of course, allow him to target the hated Canberra bureaucrats who he says forced him out. But many of his pet issues are still the same bureaucratic battles he fought in the sixties and seventies.

Going home is the only way to exorcise these bitter demons. Clark says he tried to return to the Australian mainstream by taking up an offer to become scholar-in-residence at the Foreign Affairs department in the mid-eighties, but claims the then minister, Bill Hayden, vetoed it. A spokeswoman for the now Governor-Genneral confirms he rejected, in April 1986, a suggestion that Mr Clark should get the position.

He also applied for the job of trade commissioner to China in the mid-eighties. "That would have been quite a comedown for me," he says. "My idea was to take a loss of income for three to four years, and ideally use the job to get back into the bureaucracy." He didn't get the job. John Menadue, then head of the deapartment, is understood to have made his opposition clear. One member of the selection committee was Stephen Fitzgerald, Australia's first ambassador to Beijing in 1972, and an old colleague of Clark's from university in Canberra in the sixties, when both were studying Mandarin. Fitzgerald said he didn't oppose Clark, but when Fitzgerald's name comes up, Clark splutters: "He owes his position to me--the little bastard."

It turns out that his complaint is nothing to do with the trade job, but goes all the way back to the sixties. Clark claims credit for getting Fitzgerald started in Chinese studies, but feels the favour was never returned. It is another demon.

"Ah, Greg, he's a funny guy," says Fitzgerald when I relay this comment. "I have a great respect for Greg--it was only a couple of years ago when we were talking about doing something between Japan and Australia. But he's a kind of captive almost to this day of reliving the fights of the sixties as though he can't escape them. It's weird. When I was strting the Journal of Australian Chinese Studies, I wrote to him suggesting he write an article about Japan-China relations. He wrote back that it would be much more interesting to write about what happened in Foreign Affairs in 1965-66." Clark's obsession with the past makes it difficult to contribute in the present, even when he knows as much as any Australian about Japan and China, and much of Asia, and their languages.

"To be an oracle," says Fitzgerald, "you must have an element of the protean. It's all very well to be messianistic, but even messianics have to be manipulative. You have to adapt to people's personalities. It requires a lot of crafting. You must suppress ego, and also your sponteneous tendency to be contemptuous of other people." Clark gramaces when I tell him what Fitzgerald has said. Fitzgerald is right in a way, he admits. He should leave these things behind, but he still wants to stress that these are important issues. We have a beer and I leave. Wating for me when I come into my office early next morning is a three-page, densely typed fax. It contains a detailed account of what Clark calls the "main event" straining his ties with the Labor Party--a debate in the bureaucracy about the need for a treaty between Australia and Japan. It was a debate Clark lost. "I was left swinging in the wind, again," he says. It is a remarkable document--full of fascinating insight, personalities, bitchiness and self-pity. It could be part of a great book about Clark's life and times. He should write it himself. Put it all on the record. Let it all hang out.

Then, perhaps, he can get on with the rest of his life.

ARTICLE ENDS


SUPPLIMENTARY NOTE FROM HELP EDITOR:
I received a photocopy of this article from a person who has had professional contact with Clark. The sender enclosed a short memo saying the following:

"Dave, I have the dubious distinction of inviting him to lecture. A Y600,000 fee & airfares for a two-hour, not a second more, dated speech. I know, because we had a taped one from 8 years given previously. And he had the nerve to ask us to sell his books at the door. No question time, either."

HELP JOURNAL FEATURE ON GREGORY CLARK ENDS

On the Employment Rights of Repeatedly Renewed Contract Workers
By Steven van Dresser

Over the past couple of years, I have been trying to "nail down" the legal rights of repeated renewed contract workers in the private sector in Japan. In part, I was doing this because of abuses I had witnessed first hand and, in part, because I felt at risk. I had been originally hired on a contract which explicitly stated that it could be renewed, but at the first one year renewal, the contract was changed to say that "it is not contemplated that this agreement be renewedEquot;, but a new agreement could be reached. This latter language was in three subsequent renewals. Later, my interest in this subject was heightened by my wife's and my dismissal (non-renewal) on the same date, from contract positions we had held for years.

What I had learned from reviewing the legal literature, in particular "Japanese Labor Law" by Kazuo Sugeno, translated by Leo Kanowitz (1992), was published in the December, 1998 "PALE Journal of Professional Issues." (http://www.debito.org/PALE1298.html#employment rights)

In brief, a job is a constitutional right and obligation in Japan which cannot be taken away lightly. Even workers, who are under contract for brief periods of time, accrue some rights of continuation after being repeatedly renewed, especially if the work is ongoing and similar to that of "regular" employees. Public workers, including workers at public universities, are not protected by Labor Law. (Foreign public workers are also not protected under Civil Service Law.) Once a worker has been renewed several times, a dismissal (non-renewal) is considered abusive and illegal unless it meets special requirements. In brief, these are:

1. Criminal actions by the employee against the employer or complete incompetence (read this as brain-dead)
2. Violation of Law or Labor Union agreements in the initial hiring.
3. Severe economic hardship requiring a rational restructuring.
4. The employee was forewarned in the initial contract that it would not be renewed beyond a fixed period of time, i.e. "this contract is for one year and it may not be renewed beyond three years".
5. The employee is over the mandatory retirement age.
6. A University has changed its curriculum and different faculty are required for teaching the new courses.
7. An employee has agreed to leave by signing a contract which states that it will not be renewed.

Since none of these "good" reasons seemed to apply in my case, I went to court, where I learned a good deal more about Japanese Labor Law. Fortunately, I had the support of my wife, many friends, the faculty/staff labor union at my school, and two of the best "labor" lawyers around Southern Kyushu. The other side had a team of lawyers from the same Osaka law firm which represents the Japanese Association of Private Universities. They seemed to have had unlimited resources for preparing hundreds of pages of affidavits and arguments. Just the preliminary rounds, leading to the provisional "karishobun" rulings, lasted for eight months and included witnesses, testimony, cross-examination and reams of paperwork. The main case continued through five or six more hearings and additional testimony, even more paperwork. The Japanese courtroom is not a good place for a person in a hurry.

The school basically tried to apply numbers 3 and 7 above. In its preliminary rulings, the court had ruled that the school had not credibly shown financial distress, nor had I knowingly agreed to end my employment. The Japanese version of my contract was clearly a terminal contract, but the English version Ü and the explanation I was given at renewal -- did not lead me to believe I was quitting. The judge determined that I had not consented to leave. Even though my case had a somewhat "winning" conclusion, in general, a dismissed employee needs more than just the law on his/her side. Here are some other obstacles to pursuing and winning a case.

1. Going to court gets a stigma. Whether you are right or wrong, going to court is considered a "bad thing." If a court case goes to trial, the parties' names become public and their reputations are damaged. It is almost certain that no other employer would hire such blemished merchandise, especially another school. The stigma applies to witnesses as well. Would you really ask a friend to risk his career to expose the truth? In my case, I am grateful that the witnesses for the other side told the truth under oath. Their ambiguities in their depositions were clarified under cross-examination. If they had lied, I couldn't have found any support for my statement of the facts.

2. You have to be somewhere to fight. Anyone on a work visa loses their right to fight for their job when they lose their job. If you don't have a right to be in Japan apart from your employment, you lose. In a case a few years ago, an English conversation teacher who was not renewed went to court and won a provisional ruling which awarded him continuing salary from his big name Eikaiwa school. The immigration authorities ruled that getting a salary is not the same as having a job and said they would revoke his work visa. I haven't heard any more about the case.

3. You have to have time, money, and patience. Under the best of circumstances, Japanese courts are slow. When a party to a suit can see advantages to going even slower, a case can drag out almost forever. If you don't have the stamina and resources for a protracted battle, you will lose.

4. In the end, the court may make rulings which seem absurd under any other judicial system. The courts won't make any decision which they see as being political. If you want new laws, go to the Diet. If they have the opportunity of doing nothing, that will be the preferred choice. Even if you win a decision, the courts have little power of enforcement over any but financial matters. If they order reinstatement, don't expect National Guard troops to be lining the road to the school.

5. The renewal rights outlined above are being rapidly eroded. It is (still) not clear what rights remain. It seems as if the benefit of any doubt is given to the employer, but that doesn't mean everything is always in doubt. In these difficult economic times, moves by employers to cut costs or streamline are seen as important and justifiable.

In the end, my case ended with a financial settlement. I had wanted a decisive, unqualified victory, and I didn't get one. It didn't occur to me when I started my case, but the weakest part of my suit was my own age. I was not going to be awarded anything beyond the retirement age of 60 under any circumstances and there was nothing I could do about that. The court would certainly have ruled that I had known about the retirement age and I could not have expected to be employed beyond that time. That put an upper limit on my potential "winnings" to two or three years of salary, depending on who was counting. My age also put a time boundary on the suit itself, which sought reinstatement. I could not expect reinstatement after 60, and my case would still be tied up in appeals for long after that. I was told (by my own lawyers) that I would have to start a new and different case for damages instead of reinstatement and the second case would also have to go through a full trial and appeals process.

It also seemed that the Miyazaki court was not going to rule on any issues of racial discrimination in employment or hiring, because "there are no current laws in Japan against such behavior." Creation of new law should be up to the Diet and not the courts. (The main judge acknowledged that this might not be the case in America.)

I had heard that the main judge in my case was famous for getting settlements instead of giving rulings. It later occurred to me that the way to get parties to a suit to agree to a settlement is to tell both sides that they were going to lose and a settlement was the only way to avoid losing. The judge would have to be convincing to each side. Each side would have to think that settlement was the only way out.

So, the judge must logically have been bluffing at least one side, and maybe both. At the time of the settlement, my lawyers said that they were convinced that the "honne", true reality, was that the judge was set to rule against me on all outstanding issues. They thought the judge would rule that (1) foreigners in particular should not expect the continuation of employment without a written signed agreement. We should know better. (2) Any written contract for a specified time has no implications for continued employment, i.e. only an unwritten contract is subject to repeated renewal benefits - a written contract is a new contract each time and can never be considered renewed. (3) Even though the Miyazaki Educational Institution did not indicate that I would not be renewed, I should have known that until I had a signed contract for subsequent years, I had no job rights. (4) Even though my last four contracts stated, "In view of the fact that employee is employed as a foreign teacher by MEI, it is not contemplated that this agreement be renewed upon its termination," this is not illegal discrimination. Employment could have been terminated without that clause anyway, just because there was a specified ending date for the contract period. Later, after some reflection, my lawyers thought that the case might not have gone entirely against us, that it might have been interesting to pursue appeals, but still it would have been very time consuming and expensive, with only small awards likely at the end.

Under other cases, the Supreme Court has ruled that the fact that Japanese and foreigners are hired under different rules and systems is not a violation of the Labor Standards Law, since the labor law only applies to people after they are employed and not during the hiring process. Discrimination in hiring for any reason whatsoever seems to be just fine. (Ditto for public accommodations, housing, borrowing, etc.)

The school's lawyers -- flown in for every appearance from a high priced Osaka law firm -- were notorious for rejecting settlements as a way of ending cases. After the settlement agreement was reached, the opposing lawyers were ashen and grim. I can only imagine what the other side was told, but I suspect it was even harsher than anything I had heard. It occurred to me later, that the judge must have told them that they were certain to lose, lose big time, and likely to lose on appeal, as well.

Time was not on my side. I was convinced that the school would appeal every adverse ruling. They had already twice appealed the "karishobun", provisional ruling for a trivial amount. (We had won the provisional ruling and we had won on a review of the provisional ruling that the school had requested. An appeal by the school to the Fukuoka High Court was pending at the time of the settlement.) It seemed quite likely to me that the case could be dragged on practically forever. It also seemed that even winning outright wouldn't pay all that much, given the amount of time I might have expected to remain employed and the alternative income I was able to generate during that time. The amount of actual damages would have been small since my wife and I were doing quite well on our own.

In retrospect, I really don't know how the court would actually have ruled on various issues. I am convinced I would have won something, but the appeals process would continue for a long time. In the end, taking the offer suggested by the judge seemed to be a good way to get out of a hard place. An unfortunate side effect of the Japanese judicial system is that winning cases get settled, losing cases set judicial precedents.

Perhaps the next similar case will have a younger plaintiff with more lifetime earnings at stake. I had thought that my case was as clear-cut as a case could be, but I seem to have been mistaken. Chronological age is something over which I have no control.

The net results are mixed. The school will probably be more careful in how they handle full-time contract teachers in the future, but they have not hired any foreign teachers full-time this year and are saving money by hiring only part-timers. Until Japanese law insists that Japanese and foreigners be treated equally, I don't think things will change. Even in that case, following current trends, it may be that Japanese teachers will be treated equally badly rather than foreigners being treated better.

The terms of the settlement are that I have agreed to drop my court case against Miyazaki Women's Junior College. My wife is withdrawing her case before the Regional Labor Council against Miyazaki International College. I will not reveal the amount of the cash settlement; nor say anything bad about Miyazaki Educational Institution schools. I can say that the settlement was reasonable and commensurate with the amount I may have received had the trial played out.

Some people closely involved with the case have pointed out that winning two provisional rulings and getting a settlement is victory enough. I would have liked to take this, after all appeals, to an appropriate UN body to investigate whether Japan is adhering to its commitments made a few years ago under the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). This task must be left for others to pursue.

[For information on recent lawsuits under the CERD, see
http://www.debito.org/otarulawsuit.html
and
http://www.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~masden/mamorukai/english/Ehome.htm --Ed.]

Steve van Dresser is currently a migrating worker (but keeping in good nick), with addresses in Miyazaki and Yokohama. The address that follows him around is svd@fine.ocn.ne.jp

Part-time Faculty Compensation and Benefits
(Courtesy Thom Simmons, JALT President)

The following is a resolution which was passed unanimously at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Convention in Philadelphia on July 6, 2000:

WHEREAS, AFT represents more than 35,000 part-time faculty in two- and four-year colleges and universities throughout the United States; and

WHEREAS, part-time faculty currently constitute about 43% of the nation's higher education teaching force and teach many thousands of students enrolled in our colleges and universities, with the number
constantly increasing; and

WHEREAS, part-time faculty often teach the same courses as full-time faculty; and

WHEREAS, the majority of part-time faculty earn between one fourth and one half of the wages of a full-time faculty member on a per-class basis, often earning less than $2,000 to teach an entire course; and

WHEREAS, part-time faculty generally are either compensated poorly, or not at all, for advising students or working with their colleagues on academic matters; and

WHEREAS, a great number of part-time faculty have no health care or retirement benefits; and

WHEREAS, many part-time faculty are denied unemployment benefits during the summer and other times of unemployment; and

WHEREAS, the excessive reliance on part-time faculty threatens a basic principle of educational quality, namely that a core of full-time permanent tenured faculty should be in charge of the academic curriculum and teaching most of it; and

WHEREAS, many AFT locals and state federations have made the issue of equal pay (and benefits) for part-time faculty a priority in their legislative and bargaining agendas; and

WHEREAS, AFT supports the principal of equal pay for equal work for all workers; and

WHEREAS, access to a secure family wage, full-time job is an essential tenet of the AFL-CIO agenda for working families:


RESOLVED, that the AFT mobilize at all levels through organizing, bargaining and public policy advocacy to end the financial and professional exploitation of part-time faculty; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT continue to work to restore the corps of full-time tenure track faculty. The AFT should study best practices nationally for giving qualified part-timers special consideration for full-time positions as they become available and should promote implementation of those practices; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT promote the principal of equal pay and benefits for equal work for part-time faculty with equivalent qualifications and experience; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT, when requested, work cooperatively with its locals to help secure health benefits for part-time workers in their workplace; and

RESOLVED, that until such benefits are available to part-time educators and staff in their workplace, the AFT will make every effort to secure from its health insurance carriers a health insurance policy and make this plan available to its part-time members as part of the AFT PLUS program; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT advocate for legislation to ensure that part-time faculty with no expectation of continued employment are eligible for unemployment compensation during summers (if they are not employed) and other times they are unemployed; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT investigate new and innovative ways to enhance the ability of part-time faculty to achieve a fair and equitable wage and benefit package; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT, through devices such as publications and the AFT webpage, ensure that state federations, higher education locals and part-time faculty members are periodically informed of progress
toward implementing the goals of this resolution; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT should develop procedures to monitor implementation of the goals of the resolution and should report periodically on the results."

*********************

Jack Longmate adds: I'd like to propose that TESOL consider endorsing this resolution as we did for the NCTE resolution in Fall of 1998.

This was passed on to Thom Simmons, JALT President, by Lynne Dodson, President, Seattle Community Colleges Federation of Teachers; Jack Longmate (jacklongmate@silverlink.net) Chair, Caucus on Part-Time Employment Concerns (COPTEC), and Linda Kaley <lkaley@tesol.org>

UPDATE ON GWEN GALLAGHER CASE:

Working Papers: Language Educators and Labor Law
By Michael H Fox, Hyogo College
(This is a full reproduction of the article originally publiched in The Language Teacher Magazine, Vol 25, No 1, January 2001)

INTRODUCTION
When JapanÍs postwar constitution was formulated, an article was included which, at first glance, appears puzzling: "All people have the right and the responsibility to work" (Article 27). In a country where death by overwork (karoushi) is common enough to be listed as a category in the statistics of the Labor Ministry, what purpose could such a principle hold? Of course, the use of the word 'responsibility' is directed towards the elimination of the imperial system. But 'right', especially in the context of the constitution, clearly denotes an enfranchisement for the common people. This right is at the heart of discussions of the rights of language educators and the purpose of this article is to detail what prescriptions and safeguards Japanese labor law affords contracted language educators. It will begin by outlining the current laws and discuss their actual implementation by examining a specific court case, one which may have far reaching implications for contracted foreign language educators.

LIMITED TERM CONTRACTS AND LABOR LAW
Japanese labor law recognizes two different varieties of contracts: those for a fixed or so called imited termEand those without any specific time limitation. A limited term contract is one which specifies a date of termination. Until 1997, the longest legal term for such a contract, in regard to educators, was one year (Footnote 1). Contracts can be legally concluded for shorter periods-one week or one month, etc. And though some employers offered contracts for longer periods-two or three years- these fell outside the legally enforceable scope of labor law. This one-year limit was established in order to prevent indentured servitude. One-year contracts could, of course, be renewed indefinitely, and there are many language educators, mostly foreigners, who have spent much of their lives employed at the same institution on renewed contracts. As long as the employer and the employee remain on favorable terms, it makes good sense to continue the working relationship.

But what happens if the relationship sours and conflicts arise? The employee is always free to leave, but what if the employer wishes to lay off the employee because the contract is over, but the employee, wishes to continue work? At this juncture, Japanese law favors the employee. The law does not permit the dismissal of an employee whose contract has been repeatedly renewed on the simple premise that the term of employment has concluded. Japanese law has long recognized that fter such a contract has been repeatedly renewed, it will resemble a contract without a fixed period." (Sugeno, p. 389) This in turn means that the employee who is contracted on a fixed term is granted many of the same rights as the tenured one, particularly the freedom from arbitrary dismissal.

It is important to note that this law applies uniformly to all workers employed by private concerns, from eikaiwa schools to private high schools and universities. Furthermore, Article 3 of the Labor StandardÍs Law prohibits any kind of discrimination according to nationality. The crux of the matter, according to the law, is how many times a contract been renewed.

This brings us to the crucial question: exactly how many times must a contract be renewed before the employee gains a measure of protection? Unfortunately, this all-important point is vague and the target of contentious and heated debate (Fujimoto 1990; Mawatari 1990; Furunishi 1996). Most of the focus of this debate is not upon one-year contracts, the norm for ESL jobs, but for short term manual labor contracts of two to six months length. Though many decisions have been handed down by courts at various levels, a good deal of ambiguity exists. In most cases, four or five renewals bind the employer to continue the contract. In order for this reasoning to take effect, there should not be any stipulation that the contract will not be renewed beyond a certain period. (Footnote 2)

Why is it important to decide how many renewals constitute a implicit acknowledgement that the employer has an obligation to continue employing the worker? Because with that acknowledgement, the employer is then bound by the specific sections of labor law which clearly spell out the fair and legal reasons for dismissal. Specifically, the law states that there must be "an objective and logical reason based upon social convention" (Footnote 3). Dismissing someone because they are no longer young and attractive, to create an opening for the presidentÍs niece, or because oneÍs opinions or political stances differ from the agreed reality-- these all fall outside the scope of the law and are illegal.

But being protected by legal rights does not guarantee that employers will behave fairly. Even if a company or school tyrannically dismisses employees without fair reason, knowingly and in complete disregard of the law, it will not be punished automatically by the police, Monbusho, or any other governmental authority. The only way to remedy such conduct is through union action or through the courts. If left unchecked, abuse and malevolence, no matter how egregious, will not be corrected. The responsibility to ameliorate such behavior rests entirely upon the shoulders of the employee.

This brings our discussion to a current and significant legal case: the Asahikawa University case. After twelve years of employment, Gwendolyn Gallagher, an American full time lecturer at the college was abruptly discharged. According to labor law, as mentioned above, the school must have and present the employee with a "an applicable and logical reason based upon social convention." When Gallagher sought a reason for her termination, the university offered none and argued that none was necessary. (Fox, et al. TLT 23:8) Gallagher on legal advice, soon brought suit against the college seeking full reinstatement.

When the court ruled that a reason for the dismissal must be presented, the university argued that Gallagher implicitly agreed that her final five-year contract was terminal. In response, the judge informed the university that Labor Law does not recognize five-year contracts, nor for that matter, any contract over one year. In an attempt to persuade the court, the university insisted that Gallagher had "become too Japanese" and declared "a need for fresh gaijin." (Footnote 4) The presiding judge found these arguments had no bearing on the case, and issued a provisional ruling which retroactively restored Gallagher's salary to the full. The university offered a settlement and Gallagher, hoping to demonstrate her good faith, accepted a one year contract (the only one recognized as legal by Labor Standards Law) and waived any damages or court costs. In accepting the one year contract, Gallagher and her lawyers were confident that the law would be upheld in regards to Gallagher's right as a repeatedly renewed employee, laws which had been applied in a number of previous cases for Japanese nationals.

At the end of the one-year contract, the university once again dismissed Gallagher, and she was forced to return to court. The court tried to negotiate a settlement but the university offered only temporary remedies such as limited part time work which clearly represented inferior conditions to Gallagher's previous situation. Thus, the court was called on to issue a binding decision.

On February 1, 2000, the chief judge announced that Gwendolyn Gallagher had lost her case.

To answer the pressing question of why, we must review the courtÍs written decision. The following is a partial translation in which the court discusses the university's plan for language education reform in order to justify the dismissal with "an objective and logical reason according to social conventionEBR>
The following is a partial translation in which the court discusses the university's plan for language education reform in order to justify the dismissal with "an objective and logical reason according to social convention".

===================================================================

A TRANSLATION OF THE DECISION
(The following translation commences with Section Two on p 58.)

Section (2) The University's concrete plans for language education reform. (Hikoku daigaku ni okeru gogaku kyouiku kaikaku no gutaiteki naiyou)
The university's present language education problems are:

1) Uniform courses for all students despite the large differences in English ability among them.
2) A necessity for connecting and integrating specialized Economic courses (Current Events English, English for Commerce, Comparative Cultures, etc) to fit the character of a college with a single department.
3) The necessity of preparing an educational system extending to students with a fervor for language, and raising English conversation levels by enthusiastically promoting activities like overseas travel and professorial exchange, etc.
4) The necessity of expanding the breadth of language education choices for students by altering the excessive importance attached to English, and creating courses in Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, etc.

In order to accomplish this, the college will divide language education into three levels: Level I will consist of the four language skills (reading, hearing, writing and speaking) aiming at the opening of new courses in various languages (Korean, Russian and Ainu) without an excessive importance attached to English; Level II is intended to unify the language education tied to Economics specialty courses (Current Events English, English for Commerce, Comparative Cultures,etc) and enliven the specialty of a university with only a single Economics department; Level III courses will tune the language system to aid occupational language (translation, tour conductors etc.), overseas study and advancement to graduate school, and promote the abilities of students who will contribute to society through language.

Section (3) Aptitude of faculty for each level under reformed language education.
In regard to Level II, those faculty with specialized knowledge and an affinity for Economics will be appropriate. For Level III, the ability to introduce foreign culture firsthand can be appropriated to foreign exchange professors from associated universities and guest staff with high degrees of knowledge. And in addition, there will be a necessity for faculty to aid with the other designated plans and environmental factors of all levels within the complete program. To this extent, full time faculty who will be perpetual staff members will be most suitable.
On the other hand, in regard to level I, the necessity for various language faculty is confirmed in regard to the diversification of foreign language classes and the reconstruction of small group classes to raise the efficacy of acquisition of the four language skills. In addition, as the college has only a single department, in which Level I classes have a relatively low correlation to Economics, the credits necessary for graduation in English have been decreased from four classes constituting eight credits to the new 1998 level of two classes constituting four credits, all corresponding to the aforementioned changes in 1991 of the University Standards Law (daigaku secchi kijun). Thus, the need for a full time lecturer with the obligation of attending kyoujukai and participation in perpetual duties is insignificant. Moreover, the university has shown a deficit of 223,000,000 yen for 1997, and with deficit predictions of 660,000,000 million yen for 1998 and 228,000,000 yen for 1999. In these severe circumstances, assigning level one classes to a full time lecturer or tokunin lecturer whose expensive salary is three times that of a part time lecturer is problematical. So hiring part time lecturers is justifiable. And in light of this examination, the college abolished its rules regarding the employment of foreign language faculty.

Section (4) What the plaintiff (Gallagher) has been told about language education reform.
In regard to the aforementioned plan for language education reform as explained by the defendant (Asahikawa University) in the previous law suit, and during the previous settlement, the defendant explained and gave materials regarding language education reform to the plaintiff. The plaintiff could anticipate that language education reform would be carried out from April 1998, before the expiration of the limit of employment agreed to in the previous settlement.

Section (5) The difficulty in re-employing the plaintiff under language education reform.
In light of the aforementioned policy of language education reform, the plaintiff who is not a full time lecturer could not be assigned to Level II or all Level designated classes. As the plaintiff has been living in Japan for about 14 years and is also married to a Japanese, she lacks the ability to introduce firsthand foreign culture found overseas, as is required of a teacher of level 3 [classes] .
Moreover, in regard to the remaining Level I classes, the plaintiff makes three times the salary of part time lecturers and so assignment to these classes is problematical.

===================================================================IRRATIONAL JURISPRUDENCE?

There are a number of reasons one can argue against the university's reasoning. The first is to ask how the dismissal of one foreign teacher, with no other reorganization of other teaching faculty at the university will allow the implementation of a curriculum whose breadth rivals a national gaikokugo university, even though Asahikawa University has only one department, that of economics. And how can the university's claims of serious deficits and declining enrollments jibe with the ability to implement a curriculum that includes Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Ainu(!) among other languages? Also, how is it that Gallagher's lack of 'freshness' is problematic when it is not a problem for Japanese staff, who continue to be employed?

All of these contradictions are substantial and substantive, and if we were to argue that the court's decision was based simply on this line of reasoning, then the ruling would be incomprehensible. However, there are several external factors that help us to understand why the ruling was made.

The first explanation lies in the character of the Japanese judiciary itself. Japanese judges eschew having to make decisions. They view their work primarily as mediators of brokered settlements (wakai). Throughout the trial, the court constantly tried to broker a settlement between Gallagher and the college. The key to Japanese law, as can be seen in many hanging scrolls in courtrooms across the country, is (iso kyuuwa) which means: "Bringing Suit, Seeking Wa." Wa of course refers to harmony or reconciliation. The underlying tenet in this legal milieu is that one should not go to court to seek victory, but conciliation. The term for conciliation or settlement in Japanese is "wakai", literally, a division of wa. In theory, both sides make concessions and arrive at a mutually agreeable solution.

Thus, to seek justice in a Japanese court is a precarious undertaking. Worthington writes, "Japanese Courts are notoriously reluctant to make any ruling that disturbs the status quo or challenges administrative power structures, and they are hostile to individuals' assertions of their rights to protection under law. District courts in particular do not like to interpret the law and will use any shred of evidence to make a factual finding denying coverage of protection."(1999, p.5)

And why are district court judges so averse to adjudicating according to conscience? Mostly out of fear for their own futures. O'Brien notes, "The lower courts are understaffed by judges who are closely monitored and whose careers are carefully manipulated."(1996, p. 65) (Footnote 5)

Gallagher's lawyers affirm this explanation. They suggest that the judges are concerned less with the facts of the case then they are with the present mood of the Supreme Court regarding labor matters. The Supreme Court, like the rest of this country in the post bubble era, has become very conservative, and is now taking an almost reactionary approach to the rights of the individual. In the 1960s and 70s, it choose to protect such rights; it is now the received view that lifetime employment is not a right but a privilege.
And in the hierarchical world of the Japanese judiciary, lower courts are following the lead of the Supreme Court and we find lower courts in this country steadily working to erode the rights of laborers that have been in place since the post-war constitution.

THE NEXT STEP
What happens next? Gallagher has appealed the decision to the Sapporo High Court. If we were to simply examine the facts of the case, we would assume that the court would side with Gallagher and reverse the decision. However, it remains possible that the court will carve out an exception and argue that foreigners, unlike their Japanese counterparts, are hired to be attractive decorations to lure new students, and therefore must be regularly recycled. Thus, those people who have chosen to make Japan their home are under the greatest threat. It is appalling to think that the university's argument about 'freshness' might actually find favor with the court. Even more frightening is the possibility that the court could exclude foreigners from the protections of Japanese Labor Law and give credence and set legal precedent to what is an irrational and discriminatory educational policy. All professional language educators should direct their attention to this case and hope that, for the future of the profession, the high court will ameliorate the lower court's error.

Michael H. Fox is an Associate Professor at Hyogo College. He can be reached by email at thefox@humans-kc.hyogo-dai.ac.jp

Notes
1) Labor Standards Law, Article 14. This system changed in 1997 with the passage of the Sentaku Ninkisei Hou which permits longer limited term contracts. See Fox et al,TLT 23:8.
2) This is the primary reason why many positions stress one year contracts with permanent termination after four years--to avoid the possibility of legal repercussions.
3) "shakai tsuunen jou, soutou to sareru kyakkan teki gouriteki riyuu" is a common citing in labor law cases.
4) ĂšÆ“ânÙȶÉȘ@Æ­WäNȘi°Ă)Ο­P­SÙșȘ@ĂšÆ“ÎŒÉwânĂæđSăúĆč¶ĂÆ\­”­Ú¶ ¶„䛶ÎȘ@p.7-8. ( see the full English translation at: www.voicenet.co.jp/~davald/asahikawaafficavit1.jpg)
5) During legal training, aspiring lawyers learn that judges who write decisions of ot guiltyEdo not receive promotions. Personal communication, criminal attorney, Ohta Junichi.

References

  • Worthington, C. (1999) Combatting Discrimination at a Japanese University. Working Paper No. 58 (p.5). Japan Policy Research Institute. Cardiff, CA.
  • Fox, M. , Shiozawa, T., & Aldwinckle, D. (1999) . A New system of university tenure: remedy or disease. The Language Teacher 23 (8), 13-15, 18.
  • Sugeno, K. (1992) Japanese Labor Law. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
  • O'Brien, D. (1996) To Dream of Dreams: Religous Freedom and Constitutional Politics in Postwar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
  • ăÁȘi­P­X­X­O)ȘuĆĘÔúö©­źÆ€ÔËȘv(Rights and restrictions regarding dismissals)ȘwăĐ­úêĂă_ȘiÆVä)ȘxȘi°W°·°É°X°gÎÉ€Ș@Éw­úÌV°ÉȘ[°YȘ@­VȘjȘA­P­X­ WȘ[­XȘAä‹ÉtȘB
  • änăn¶~ÐùIȘi­P­X­X­OȘjȘuâZɜùJăĐÔ_­úőXÆVŃÎƉȘv(The termination of revewed short term contracts)ȘwăĐ­úêĂă_ȘiÆVä)ȘxȘi°W°·°É°X°gÎÉ€Ș@Éw­úÌV°ÉȘ[°YȘ@­VȘjȘA­Q­O­SȘ[­TȘAä‹ÉtȘB
  • ÔÌÆčÆMȘ@Și­P­X­X­UȘjȘuɜÔ_­úőXÆVŃÎäóȘv(Refused revewals of limited term contracts)ȘwăĐäÈÔĂÎIȘiΟäȘjȘxȘi°W°·°É°X°gٞȘ@No. 134, 154-5. ä‹ÉtȘB
  • ĂšÆ“ânÙȶÉȘ@Æ­WäNȘi°Ă)Ο­P­SÙșȘ@ĂšÆ“ÎŒÉwânĂæđSăúĆč¶ĂÆ\­”­Ú¶ ¶„䛶ÎȘ@p.7-8.
  • ĂšÆ“ânÙȶÉȘ@Æ­XäNȘi°¶)Ο­Q­V­UÙșȘ@ĆĘÔÒÔżÉmäFÆÀŃȘÚ¶ äÈÔĂȘA­T­WȘ[­U­RȘB

E/P>

January 2001 High Court defeat
By Gwen Gallagher

Subject: High Court Decision
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001
Dear Friends,

I'm sorry the news is bad. I was, like Scrooge, as he awaited the second spirit "ready for anything from a baby to a rhinoceros." What we got is a lot less attractive than a rhinoceros.

In Sapporo High Court today Head Judge Kazuhiro Takeda curtly announced "Appeal refused." We had to wait for my lawyer to retrieve the written decision from another floor and hurriedly scan it before we could find out why. I will try to explain its contents, as I understand it.

First let me remind you of a few basic tenets of Japanese labor law. One is that even a contracted employee has the right to expect renewal of contract, except when the employer has "a logical, applicable reason" not to do so. (This is invalid if there has been a clear agreement that the contract will not be renewed after a certain period, or if the contract is for some project with a clear completion, like the building of a house.) This right has been repeatedly affirmed, and is especially strong if the employee has already repeatedly renewed the contract. One stalwart member of my support group is high school mathematics teacher Toshiko Furukawa, who won reinstatement after being eliminated on the completion of just a single one-year contract in the '70s.

In my first lawsuit (after the '96 dismissal) Asahikawa District Court Judge Tani clearly stated that a "non-renewal" was a de facto firing, and based his injunction ordering the restitution of my pay and status on this right-to-expect-renewal, and Asahikawa University's lack of anything that approached a "logical, applicable" reason (remember the college's need for "fresh gaikokujin--foreigners".) Even Judge Saiki's appalling Asahikawa District Court decision of last year, for all its mistakes, illogic, blatant racism and sexist implications, did recognize my right to expect renewal--he just happened to think that teaching experience and marriage to a Japanese depleted a foreigner's teaching ability to the extent that it consituted the logical, applicable reason required. [See http://www.debito.org/PALEspring2000.html]

The High Court takes a different view. They simply declared the employee's right-to-expect-renewal void.

Another basic tenet of labor law is the requirement concerning "seiri kaiko" or cutting down on staff for economic reasons. If an employer is in financial distress, a number of steps must be taken before the dismissal of full-time employees. They are 1. making other efforts to economize first--and only dismissing employees as a last resort; 2. clearly establishing the need to reduce staff and the precise number to which they need to be reduced; 3. clearly establishing that the selection of the to-be-dismissed employees is fair; 4. clearly explaining all of these things to employees.

In the second lawsuit ('98 firing), Asahikawa University claimed that my dismissal was due to economics, but took none of the above steps. District Court Judge Saiki's decision was vague on this point. But the High Court was clear: non-tenured faculty can be considered on par with part-timers, and in neither case is this protection applicable. In spite of various precedents to the contrary, the Sapporo High Court is now saying that non-tenured faculty (and other contracted workers) enjoy no protection from dismissals under labor law.

Now, you are probably wondering what the High Court has to say about Judge Saiki's (and Asahikawa University's) curious ideas about the foreign teacher's culture and teaching ability being debilitated by Japan-based experience and the contamination of a Japanese spouse. Well, NOTHING. There are clauses in the new decision which mention that certain specific portions of the district court decision are "corrected." It is still unclear, however, whether these sections, which include the well-known discriminatory clause, are now invalidated as precedents. The High Court decision does seem to be trying to cover itself by inserting parenthetically that although it is okay for the college to fire me, this is not meant to imply that I lack teaching ability. (Uhhh...thank you?)

What does it all mean? This is a very good question, but it seems this is part of a recent trend in which the courts have been whittling away at the protections of labor law. Labor activists present at today's ruling were quite angry and crestfallen.

Now we are considering the next step, which is the top of the ladder. The Supreme Court differs from the District and High Courts in that they only accept cases within several narrow categories. My lawyers are now considering whether we can apply. Application does not guarantee that the case will be heard. However, if it is possible, we intend to pursue this all the way.

I am glad that my good circumstances and the support of my dear husband, lawyers, friends, colleagues, and many kind supporters have enabled me to fight being discarded like a tattered paper doll. I came down this road because Masahiro and I both agreed that whatever the outcome, the opposition to injustice has value in itself, and I am very grateful for the people I have met and lessons I have learned on this journey.

Thank you all
Gwendolyn Gallagher



Internet exposure of a character assassin
From emails off public-domain mailing lists

From: "Scalise, Paul"
To: "'shakai@ml.gol.com'" <shakai@ml.gol.com>
Subject: [shakai] FW: Re: The Gwen Gallagher Case and Globalisation
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 13:19:45 +0800

Shakai [Mailing List]--

In the interest of balance, it might be appropriate to post the university's side of the story (see Steve McCarty and Sean Curtin's remarks below). I found H-Japan's discussion of the issue to be very informative. Until now, Gallagher supporters continually cite Japanese Labor Law, failure to 'globalise' and all sorts of 'gaijin' solidarity issues while seeming to imply underneath that there is some sort of double-standard at work.

In fact, the university system seems very comparable to most American university systems: there, most colleges/universities won't even consider you today if you don't have the right academic credentials. Ms. Gallagher's university has no problem hiring foreigners Ph.D.s with tenure track. The issue, rather, seems to be (1) a question of nepotism (Ms. Gallagher's husband is on the faculty) brought about by a need for English professors (even less-than academically qualified ones) in the booming 1980s followed by (2) a simple failure (or refusal) on Ms. Gallagher's part to get a master's degree or higher while she was teaching at the university. That, apparently, would have ensured her the tenured position. Now, faced withdeclining enrolments, the shoe's on the other foot.

As old-fashioned as this may sound -- would it not have more sense for Ms. Gallagher to simply go off and get the 2-year degree (which is not that hard, speaking from experience) rather than wasting her time on media-targeted litigation proceedings? Japan's university system: damned if let's foreigners in, damned if it doesn't.

Quizzically yours,
Paul Scalise

> -----Original Message-----
> From: H-Japan Editor [SMTP:j-edit@mail.h-net.msu.edu]
> Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 10:29 PM
> To: H-JAPAN@H-NET.MSU.EDU
> Subject: H-Japan (E/J): Re: The Gwen Gallagher Case and Globalization
>
> H-JAPAN
> February 2, 2001
> 1.
>
> From: Steve McCarty <steve_mc@kagawa-jc.ac.jp>
> Subject: H-Japan (E/J): Re: The Gwen Gallagher Case and Globalization
>
> > Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 15:33:54 -0500
> > Subject: H-Japan (E): The Gwen Gallagher Case and Globalization
>
> > exactly what happened in the Gallagher case. I think this is globalization
> > at its worst and we must now show solidarity with English instructors. After
> > the Sapporo High Court's decision, they will need our support.
> > John Galsworthy,
> > University of Newcastle,
>
> This sensitive post was perhaps responding to cruel remarks
> on other, unmoderated lists. Let me try to put the issue in
> historical perspective, as befits H-Japan. The feast stage of
> post-War Japanese colleges was little known for a while and
> spouses of English teachers or Japanese professors -- in Ms.
> Gallagher's case -- could teach full-time. The opportunistic
> Japan boom followed, and in turn led to a bonanza for British
> and other universities churning out advanced degrees in TEFL
> and applied linguistics. Prof. Galsworthy does counteract the
> stereotype of British proprietors of English, who for example
> strongly assert the native speaker ideal at the expense of the
> vast majority of English teachers in non-Western countries.
>
> Bear in mind also that litigation to keep jobs is extremely
> offensive to Japanese sensibilities and is partly responsible
> for wiping out the last vestiges of tenure for foreigners.
> I researched the firings issue sympathetically and
> humanistically at the time as one who was granted tenure
> in return for "no special treatment [as a foreigner]."
>
> In retrospect, the Mombusho had the data over 15 years ago
> showing the coming population implosion, and my college
> stsrted moaning in the '80's about the coming winter for
> colleges. The Mombusho foresaw budget cuts and, in the
> nationalistic manner normal in most countries, subtly
> hinted at cutting well-paid foreigners first. Foreigners
> had been expected to return to their home countries, and
> normal raises could not continue indefinitely, so exceptional
> treatment of foreigners one way or the other could not stop.
>
> Ms. Gallagher was not a representative example, including
> for Hall's book. Without an advanced degree, she gained the
> least sympathy in the absence of measuring her teaching
> experience, either in the Western sound-bite world or in
> Japan insofar as people are treated categorically. Not a
> few well-credentialed foreigners were fired at the same
> time. A better example would be Sharon Vaipae, whose
> departure from Japan left a gap in linguistic minority
> studies, including Toyota Foundation funding, that has
> not been filled. This scholar even offered to take a pay
> cut to stay and teach, but that idea was just too original
> to be taken seriously. Recently, pay cuts for all faculty,
> plus increased workloads, are setting a new precedent.
>
> Having a contract, unlike full-timers on the tenure track
> from the start, is not to be welcomed in Japan, for it
> signals a revolving door policy in most cases. The easy
> (amai) conditions afforded Japanese nationals could not
> very well be extended to the unpredictable foreigners,
> who tend to expect the same or better benefits (amae)
> without all the non-teaching responsibilities in Japanese.
>
> The label of "globalization" does not seem to carry much
> explanatory value here, and there must be positive aspects
> before the word turns into a catch-all pejorative term.
> UNESCO's RealVideo Senegal presentation at the Japan
> Internet Fair 2001 (Inpaku) calls the slave trade one
> of the first manifestations of globalization. I can also
> go along with my wife Chisato's using the term in
> Japanese to describe hedge fund predators in Asia or
> US imperial overreach. References for this paragraph:
>
> http://www.inpaku.go.jp/
> http://www.inpaku.unesco.org/
>
> http://www.jpri.org/jpri/public/wp11.html
> http://www.jpri.org/jpri/public/op19.html
>
> But the hiring of the glut of Western PhDs seems to
> be a separate issue from the firing in lean times of
> those hired when classrooms were full, that is, out
> of domestic considerations. Very few decorative PhDs
> or anyone will be hired anew as colleges are plunging
> rapidly into the red, so globalization becomes a moot issue.
>
> This is not to take anything away from Prof. Galsworthy's
> conscientious and critical self-reflection. If only the
> perception could be changed that bringing Japanology
> to Japan is "like shipping coals to Newcastle."
>
> Collegially,
> Steve McCarty
> Professor, Kagawa Junior College
> Online Library: Bilingualism and Japanology Intersection:
> http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/epublist.html
> In Japanese: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/jpublist.html
>
>
> 2.
>
> From: curtin <curtin@rchokkaido-cn.ac.jp>
> Subject: RE: H-Japan (E): The Gwen Gallagher Case and Globalization
>
> Summary of Asahikawa University's Legal Position
>
> I teach social science at Asahikawa University as an adjunct. I am reluctant
> to get involved in this acrimonious affair involving various professors at
> the university. However, for the sake of balance, I felt obliged to write
> this article.
>
> My wife, who is a professional simultaneous interpreter, was asked by
> Asahikawa University to interpret for an interview requested by an American
> educator about the Gwen Gallagher lawsuit. Since I drove my wife all the way
> to the university, I sat in on the interview which took place on 1 February.
> Here is a summary of the session which solely represents the university's
> view on the case.
>
> 1) Gwen Gallagher's initial contracts as a language teacher were renewed
> because her husband, who is a professor at the university, repeatedly
> requested the university to do so. For this reason her employment period as
> a full-time non-tenured employee was longer than anyone else's; Japanese or
> non-Japanese.
>
> 2) In hindsight, the university admits that they should not have given
> preferential treatment to Ms. Gallagher and acknowledged this was a mistake.
> In their defence, they claim that because her husband was a member of
> faculty, they let "emotion" rather than "management policy" guide the
> decision making process.
>
> 3) It was decided that Ms. Gallagher's status should be clarified and she
> was given a five-year fixed-term contract which expired in March 1996. The
> university believed that this would be a terminal contract. [This was the
> very heart of the dispute as Ms. Gallagher did not believe this was a
> terminal contract and thought it would be renewed].
>
> 4) The American interviewer asked the university if they had made it
> absolutely clear that this was a terminal contract. They said that each year
> during the fixed-term period Ms. Gallagher had signed and stamped a renewal
> contract acknowledging the fixed-term agreement. However, the university
> conceded that they might not have made this position absolutely clear. [This
> was another issue central to the law suit. Ms. Gallagher's position was that
> since her contract had been renewed in the past, it should have been renewed
> again. Because it was not and she had worked at the university since 1984,
> she believed the non-renewal amounted to a dismissal].
>
> 5) During the five-year fixed-term the university said it had hoped that Ms.
> Gallagher would apply for a tenured position with them. However, all tenured
> positions require a masters or above. Since Ms. Gallagher could not meet
> this requirement, she was unable to apply.
>
> 6) Because the university would not renew her contract, Ms. Gallagher
> started legal proceedings against the university. In 1997, an out-of-court
> settlement was reached between the two parties. The university agreed to
> renew Ms. Gallagher's contract for a further two years until March 1998. As
> the university was restructuring its language curriculum and was seeking new
> foreign faculty with doctoral credentials, it took the position that this
> was a terminal contract. Ms. Gallagher completely rejected that the contract
> was terminal and started new legal proceedings against the university in 1998.
>
> 7) In February 2000, the Asahikawa District Court accepted the university's
> above outlined reasoning for the non-renewal of the contract.
>
> 8) On 31 January 2001, the Sapporo High Court agreed with the lower court's
> decision and rejected the appeal.
>
> 9) The American interviewer asked why Ms. Gallagher's and her professor
> husband's salaries had been mentioned in court? The university replied that
> it was standard procedure for the courts to assess the financial status of a
> plaintiff.
>
> 10) Next, the university was asked if they had dismissed Ms. Gallagher
> because they wanted "fresh foreigners." They categorically denied this was
> the reason for not renewing the contract, saying that any such comment about
> new foreign researchers had been taken out of all context. Ms. Gallagher's
> contract was not renewed for the aforementioned reasons which were confirmed
> in both judicial decisions. [I later pointed out to the interviewer that the
> comments he was referring to appeared on a partial extract of a 1996
> pretrial affidavit; page seven (see references). Without the preceding six
> pages of the document it is difficult to know what the extract is referring
> to or to put the piece in the correct context].
>
> 11) Rounding off the interview, the university said that it totally rejected
> what it sees as the unfair and false allegations of racial and gender bias
> in its policy. They said that if any aspect of policy had been considered
> discriminatory, then objections would have been raised at faculty meetings.
>
> They pointed out that no such objections had ever been raised by Ms.
> Gallagher's husband who is a member of the faculty committee. They did
> acknowledge that he had objected to the non-renewal of his wife's contract.
>
> Finally, they expressed regret that Ms. Gallagher's position had disappeared
> due to restructuring. They wished they could have hired her in a tenured
> position, but without a masters this was not possible. Her American
> replacements have Ph.D.s and the university employs tenured foreign staff.
>
> Please note that the above is only the university's side of the case and is
> very different from Gwen Gallagher's view. For her opinion on these issues
> please see the references below.
>
> Sean Curtin
> curtin@rchokkaido-cn.ac.jp
>
> References
>
> Gwen Gallagher's side of the case
> http://www.debito.org/essays.html#checkpoints [Incorrect URL--Ed]
>
> Affidavit extract - page seven (Japanese)
> http://www.debito.org/asahikawaaffidavit2.jpg [only one of several referential pages--Ed]

===================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 12:22:15 +0900
To: shakai@ml.gol.com
From: Joseph Tomei <jtomei@kumagaku.ac.jp>
Subject: [shakai] More discussion on Gwen's case (long)

Hi Paul and all,
A lot of information to digest, but there are some facts that should be noted before taking the information in. I am not subscribed to H-Japan, but wish I had been as I would have brought up these points there. I hesitate to join a list merely to issue a rebuttal, but I might have to.

First of all, Steve McCarty was not involved in any of the threads I was involved in or any of the things I discuss below, so any comments I make should not be construed as a comment on him in any shape or form. I say this because email lists often take the 'shoot the messenger' philosophy to new depths.

John Galsworthy posted a lot to the DFS list and later to the Jalttalk list concerning Gwen's case, which has its core membership in people who are in JALT and are dealing with language teaching. Many of his comments were of the 'man the barricades, sing the Internationale' supporting a leftist anti-globalist view, so much so that many people (including myself) wondered if he was actually someone trying to damage Gwen's case by using rather incendiary rhetoric. Apparently, he is as he seemed to be, but the way emails were bouncing back and forth, it was hard to tell.

This also points to a very important fact: Gwen is not her supporters and the positions that her supporters take should not be construed as Gwen's position, something which should be applied to anything I write about Gwen as well so caveat lector.

Caveat Lector is the prime phrase to keep in mind when thinking about Sean Curtin's opinion. The original webbing of this case (Gwen is not a computer person and she didn't publicise her case on the internet, rather it was picked up by others with Dave Aldwinckle and me among the usual suspects ) can be found in Dave's discussion of a PALE SIG roundtable (Professionalism, Administration, and Leadership Education
Special Interest Group) of the JALT (Japan Association of Language Teachers) 1997 conference. It's at
http://www.debito.org/paleroundtablereport.html

At that time, Sean took a notably vociferous role as Gwen's accuser, claiming that her intransigence forced him out of a job, also arguing the same line that he presents in his H-Japan post, obstensibly wrapped up in 'I don't want to be dragged into this'. It has also been suggested that Sean wrote or helped to formulate the evasive reply that the Asahikawa union sent in response to David's piece.
That's at
http://www.debito.org/asahikawadaiprotest.html

[and the backlog of information on the Gallagher Case can be found at
http://www.debito.org/activistspage.html#ninkiseigallagher --Ed.]

This would all be attributed to the 'gee, it takes all kinds' sentiment if it weren't for his continued attempts at harrassing Gwen and others who support her. First, I'll point out the holes in the arguments and then I'll delve a little more into potentially more troubling aspects.

The suggestion that this involves nepotism, a word that automatically lumps Gwen in a category of those who are getting something they don't deserve, is the first problem. Yes, her husband works at the university, but there are many places where both the husband and the wife work. So merely invoking her husband is not proof of nepotism. That never worked it's way into the court documents and on closer examination, is a non-starter. Gwen met her husband (who at the time was not her husband) after she started working at Asahikawa. I suppose that it could still be nepotism that she was kept on, but I don't see it. After all, Gwen worked at the university for 12 years, so it's a bit hard to believe that her husband was being untoward in fighting for her rights.In fact, she probably would have chucked it a lot sooner if he hadn't been there, so this is basically an unsupported accusation and we shall see that the source is less than sterling.

In addition, in that time, she has been quite active in JALT, taking on positions of responsibility that require both academic insight and hard work. She has been head of the vetting committee for the conference for a number of years and has done a marvellous job with that. She is by all accounts, an excellent teacher. She has also just published an article in the latest TLT (The Language Teacher) concerning the representations of elderly in children's books. Someone may look it up and claim that it is not 'academic', but anyone who does that is exposing their own ignorance of the stuff that is published in daigaku kiyo and gets used for promotion. I would be wrong not to add that in the most recent hanketsu, the judge emphasizes that the school has no reason to terminate her for her teaching ability.

The suggestion that Gwen should have gotten a graduate degree overlooks the fact that the university terminated her at the end of her 5 year contract and Gwen has been involved in contesting this since 1995 and in the courts since 1996 or so. It is convenient to suggest that the choice in getting a graduate degree by distance always existed, or that Gwen could have simply taken off a few years (mother of 2 school age children) and be rehired by the same administration that treated her so badly, but it doesn't really wash. As Bill Clinton noted, when he took office 8 years ago, there were only 50 sites on the internet, so this talk of distance masters is a lot of smoke. One should also note that the university certainly didn't give her a 5 year contract and then watch in astonishment that she didn't get to work on attaching letters to her name.

Also, there is a problem with hiring someone and then claiming that their lack of qualification (which wasn't a problem to hire them)makes it impossible to rehire them, especially in light of the Labor Standards Law. If this logic were possible, all of the companies wanting to restructure could simply say to the divisions they wantedto get rid of 'I'm sorry, you need a PhD', cut em loose and go on their merry way. This approach, however, seems to work for academics because we generally eat our young. There is always someone willing to make qualifications a post hoc issue, even though it wasn't when the person in question was hired. I won't mention any names, but there are some who spend their verbiage comparing the Japanese university system to the UK and the US and then using the comparison to undercut any claim of discrimination. I would point anyone laboring under this illusion to Sharon Vaipae's DFS posts about this, which goes towards explaining why it's apples and oranges, but I'm sure it wouldn't do much good.
http://www.mail-archive.com/fukuzawa@ucsd.edu/msg15146.html
and
http://www.mail-archive.com/fukuzawa@ucsd.edu/msg14536.html

Finally, Gwen did anything but target the media. Her focus has beenon creating a support network among people in Asahikawa and Hokkaido. She has been very reluctant in claiming discrimination. Her response after the sexist and racist judgment that this one 'corrected' is very telling in this regard. She said that she was secretly relieved because it provided proof that this was not simply a personality conflict gone awry, but evidence of the university trying their damnedest to squash her. (My wording of her expressed sentiment) Attempts to paint her as media hound are simply lies.

Though I honestly don't think things would have gone any differently had she simply eschewed all contact with the media and tried to work things out, any faults in trying to bring the media in should be laid on the doorstep of people like me, who have tried to make people aware of her case. In hindsight, a group of us should have gotten together and ruthlessly put out the word at every opportunity to show how she was wronged and why this should be in the forefront of everyone's mind. Unfortunately, a lot of us just lurched from event to event, withoutfocussing our efforts or coordinating them.

These are all points of debate that can and should be discussed on lists like this. Unfortunately, I have a suspicion that Sean Curtin's actions extend much further, into the realm of character assassination.

Paul is a DFSer and probably remembers Murray Keen, that vociferous attacker of Ivan Hall and others who argued for some equality in the treatment of foreigners in the Rotterdamerung of the list. Though thelist is dead, the archive remains and those who want to see the kind of tripe Murray put out can take a look at
http://www.mail-archive.com/fukuzawa%40ucsd.edu/
and do a search for Murray Keen

Asahikawa University thought so highly of some of the posts that they included them in their court submissions, along with the thoughts of "Brenda Wa452".

What does this have to do with Sean? Well, if you have any posts from Murray, you can see that the IP originating address was
202.209.78.1

If you plug that into this page
http://www.mse.co.jp/ip_domain/index.shtml

the origin of the messages is
ăœƁE\ÚûökÉCăŐɁE“ÎŒÉw

or the Japan Red Cross Hospital, College of Nursing

Murray claimed that he is a middle aged translator who has nothing to do with language teaching, yet this IP address (in Kitami, a rather isolated Hokkaido town) happens to be the same place where Sean Curtin works (curtin@rchokkaido-cn.ac.jp where rc= red cross and cn= college of nursing) and the organization whose conference he (Murray) claims to attend (IJET) reportedly doesn't show his name as a member.
(if you would like to verify this, you can subscribe to jalttalk and use the get command to access Murray's old posts and check the IP address. Please let me know if you would like specific message numbers). Curiouser and curiouser.

This also oddly synchs with Murray's DFS attacks on Dave A. over a number of much older DFS incidents that Murray suggested that he noted when he was a lurker on DFS, but made errors in attribution (and never delurked when it was an issue) that showed he wasn't actually on the list. Perhaps there is a reasonable explanation for all this, but somehow, I doubt it.

(as a side note, there was also 'Lawrence Stone', who was even more over the top than 'Murray Keen', and I now wonder who he really was, but I have deleted the messages he sent to DFS and the DFS archive
strips out the IP address. Again, one wonders)

///////////////////////////////////////
INSERTION FROM ARUDOU DEBITO/DAVE ALDWINCKLE
Stone was also Sean Curtin.
Compare the IP addresses--which are the digital equivalent of fingerprints--of this email I dredged up from my files.
==================================
X-Originating-IP: [202.209.78.1]
From: "Lawrence Stone" <ljcstone@hotmail.com>
To: jsanta@ix.netcom.com, fukuzawa@ucsd.edu
Subject: "PROFESSOR" ALDWINCKLE`S PAST
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 03:56:33 GMT
Mime-Version: 1.0

>As someone mentioned to me off-list, fear is a huge motivator when the only
>employment options open to some of these folks outside the University would
>be at a snack or at the train station kiosk.

Someone told me off-list that before getting his cushy life-time English
instructor Job, the self-styled "professor" Aldwinckle was flipping burgers
in Ithaca, New York.

Lawrence Stone
==================================
///////////////////////////////////////

Murray Keen dropped off the net at the same time it became known to people associated with the case who he may have been (As the New Yorker cartoon goes, on the internet, no one knows if you are a dog) and no one had the time or the desire to dredge all the stuff up. In hindsight, this may have been a mistake, but energy and time are only in finite quantities.

Now, to me, the fact that the university submitted documents from an obviously fictitious person would deal a severe blow to the rest of the case. But things don't seem to work like that here in Japan. There seems to be no cross-examination of evidence and the lawyers simply sent dueling briefs asking AU to say who Murray Keen was. Gwen's lawyers felt it more important to deal with the points of the Labor law rather than try to prove that the university was operating in bad faith. This is probably why there seem to be very few courtroom dramas here, unless a SMAP member is a lawyer, or the judge has an inrou of the shogun. ('Kaku-san, Suke-san, mo ii desu!')

Though I believe that true objectivity comes only when you are dealing solely with inert objects, I would trust Gwen's version of the events (who by the way, speaks Japanese very well) much more than I would trust Sean's but I leave it up to others to decide for themselves.

I should also add that Gwen has chosen to ignore what has been said about her on the various lists, something which only adds to my respect of her. Unfortunately, it is clear that Joseph Goebbels was right in that a lie, repeated often enough, becomes the truth and when the next foreigner is led to the sacrifice, those of us who think it is wrong are going to have to be much more organized and focussed in our efforts.

That's a lot of turning over stones to look at what's under them and I apologize for taking some of you on an unbidden trip down the DFS memory lane. And I want to emphasize that I am not attacking Paul for posting and I appreciate him giving the opportunity to answer some of these points that are floating around. What it appears is that on the face of these seemingly reasonable arguments is a desire to attack one person who has little power in order to make her an example to other recalcitrant faculty and staff.

Of course, the ideal for a case like this would be a 35 year old multiple PhD holder with a sterling research record (and publications of course) whose students would walk on broken glass to be in her class, who is also fluent in standard Japanese as well as three of the local dialects, and who also handles all her administrative chores with no problem and is going to singlehandly save the university, but is sacked, probably in mid lecture, by an unscrupulous administration. For some, this seems to be the minimum standard that needs to be met for discrimination to be alleged. Anyone else is a slacker, or unqualified, and therefore deserves what they get. Nothing is mentioned of the responsibility of who hired who. The responsibility rests with a single person, such as a controller or a mid-level bureaucrat, not the system. Does this sound familiar?

All I can say to finish is that the next time one of these cases pops up (as I am sure it will) I would urge those who wish to comment on this to take the time to understand the specific allegations, the actual state of affairs rather than simply claim that it's restructuring, c'est la vie.

ADDENDA FROM JOE TOMEI


Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 01:21:35 +0900
From: Joe Tomei <mtomei@zb3.so-net.ne.jp>
Subject: Re: addenda to murray keen stuff

When Dave asked me if he could include this email message in the PALE/HELP Journal, I felt a bit of trepidation. Not because I felt that anything that I had written in the message was wrong. In fact, later
correspondence seemed to bear out what I was saying. Rather, it was in the fact that the message had arisen out of a discussion on a list and as such, should be understood in a global context.

"Murray Keen" was particularly active on the DFS list (now defunct) and then moved to JALTtalk, where he, along with Professor Earl H Kinmonth, a former faculty member at Sheffield and now tenured at Taishou Daigaku, were particularly active in claiming that Gwen's case was lacking. A short listing of "Murray Keen's" subject headers can suffice to show the vehemence with which he attacked Gwen's case.
[jalttalk 17693] Asahikawa Case Flawed?
[jalttalk 17707] Re: Asahikawa Case Flawed?
[jalttalk 17710] Re: Asahikawa Case Flawed?
[jalttalk 17718] Re: Poor Translation and Disinformation
[jalttalk 17750] Re: Ashikawa translation
[jalttalk 17809] More Asahikawa misinformation???
[jalttalk 17821] Re: More Asahikawa misinformation???
[jalttalk 17853] Asahikawa misinformation-reply
[jalttalk 17868] JALT the Pressure Group/Union?
(NB: To see these for yourself, you have to subscribe to the list first. Send a message to
jalttalk-ctl@clc.hyper.chubu.ac.jp with the word subscribe in the body. After you have subscribed, Send a message to the above address with get [message number] in the body.)

He withdrew from the list after a number of people pointed out the logical flaws with his claim to be a middle aged translator. Shortly after that, I was learned, through an unrelated incident, how to track IP addresses.

What led me to post was the citing of Sean as a neutral source for Asahikawa Daigaku's presentation of its viewpoint. Subsequently, it has emerged that Sean, though present at the meeting he discusses, was actually an active participant and the person who the university was speaking to was Alan Brender, the reporter from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

In going to the H-JAPAN discussion logs (http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~japan/) I saw that not only Sean had posted, but also "Murray Keen" had posted, contesting the content of the article that Alan Brender had written. I wrote to the list moderators and asked that they take some action on the matter. Phillip Brown (brown.113@osu.edu) responded and asked 2 questions. One was for copies of the posts that I had and the second was if Sean's summary given in H-JAPAN was flawed. I forwarded the posts that I had and said that I would investigate the contents of the meeting, but it seemed that the provenance of the comments should be noted, regardless of whether or not the message represented what Asahikawa Daigaku wanted to convey.

After receiving no response, I wrote a second message and Professor Brown replied that H-JAPAN's technical staff felt that one of the IP addresses was 'corrupted in transit'. I replied that I wish they would have contacted me informing me of that and I passed on how to download the messages from the JALTtalk archives. Professor Brown also wrote that to challenge Sean's post to H-JAPAN they would prefer that Alan Brender become a member of H-JAPAN and write to the list to challenge the veracity of Sean's post.

Personally, I think that the moderators of H-JAPAN have abdicated their responsibility. In an unmoderated list, one can generally expect that a person's opinions are 'unfiltered'. However, in a moderated list, the patina of objectivity is added. Interestingly enough, a year ago, the moderators of H-JAPAN refused to post information about the Kumamoto Kenritsu Dai case, arguing that the subject matter was too political.

There is one further issue that I would bring up. It is that a web search shows that Sean Curtin is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Sheffield, School of East Asian Studies, and his
research topic is women and divorce in Hokkaido. I wrote to his advisors through the School of SEAS (seas@Sheffield.ac.uk) asking that they review Sean's participation, as the idea of posting through aliases to attack others seemed to be the polar opposite of what academic discourse required. I received a note from Sean's advisor (Dr. Richard Siddle http://www.seas.ac.uk/Research/Siddle.shtml ) that they were looking into this, but I did not get the impression that they were going to take any action.

That's where things stand at the moment.

Joseph Tomei is an Associate Professor at Kumamoto Gakuen Daigaku's Department of Foreign Languages

The abovementioned "American interviewer" is not swayed by the university's arguments:

Japanese Court Is Unswayed by American Professor's Accusation of Anti-Foreign Bias
By ALAN BRENDER

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Thursday, February 1, 2001
http://chronicle.com

An American professor lost an appeal on Wednesday to be reinstated by a Japanese university that fired her because she had lived in the country too long and was viewed as not being capable of teaching about foreign culture.

Gwendolyn Gallagher, the professor, has lived in Japan for more than 16 years and has a Japanese husband. Her case has become a cause celebre among other foreign professors of English here, who say that Japanese institutions discriminate against academics from other countries. About 30 of her supporters met after the ruling to discuss its impact.

The ruling "is really frustrating for those of us who have invested our lives here being judged on a different scale than our Japanese colleagues,"said Suzanne Yonesaka, an associate professor at Hokkai Gakuen University. Like Ms. Gallagher, Ms. Yonesaka is an American who is a long-time resident of Japan and is married to a Japanese man.

The Sapporo High Court took less than a minute to announce its decision to reject Ms. Gallagher's appeal. She was seeking to overturn a previous ruling by a district court that denied her reinstatement to Asahikawa University on Hokkaido, the northernmost of the four main islands of Japan.

In her appeal, Ms. Gallagher contended that the earlier ruling was discriminatory and contravened existing labor law. That ruling stated that she did not need a job because her husband earned an ample living, and that she was incapable of teaching English or American culture because she had lived in Japan for so long and had a Japanese husband. It further stated that because she was a foreigner, Japanese labor laws did not apply to her.

The Sapporo High Court did not respond, in its written opinion, to any of Ms. Gallagher's points. Instead, it focused on the right of Asahikawa University to change its curriculum and to revise its hiring policies.

Ms. Gallagher said she had had no expectations of what the ruling would be. "Last year, the lawyer said I had a 99 percent chance of winning the case," she said. "My Japanese supporters and the union for teachers at independent universities also believed I would win. When we lost, I was devastated. I was shocked that the decision handed down included mistakes. That is why I filed this appeal."

A representative of Asahikawa University said shortly after the decision was handed down: "We don't know yet the full result of this case. But the university negotiated a two-year contract with Ms. Gallagher and that contract is finished." One of the reasons that the university won, said the representative, is that it is trying to reform its language-education programs and its dismissal of Ms. Gallagher was merely part of that change.

Ms. Gallagher is still not ready to end her fight. She and her husband, Masahiro Asada, a tenured professor at Asahikawa University, plan to take the case to the Japanese Supreme Court if their lawyers can prove that the high court either acted contrary to the constitution or contravened existing Japanese law. Ms. Gallagher and her supporters believe that it did both.
_________________________________________________________________

Chronicle subscribers can read this article on the Web at this address:
http://chronicle.com/daily/2001/02/2001020104n.htm
_________________________________________________________________

Copyright 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education



The Appeal to Japan's Supreme Court
By Gwen Gallagher

Subject: supreme court appeal
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 20:34:45 +0900

Dear Friends,
Thank you for your many messages of consolation and encouragement after the disappointing High Court decision in Gallagher vs Asahikawa University Unfair Dismissal suit.

On February 13, we filed our appeal to the Supreme Court, asking them to set aside the High Court's decision on the grounds that it is contrary to precedent. There have been many cases in which the court has affirmed that repeatedly-renewed employees have the right to expect renewal unless the employer has a logical, applicable reason not to do so. In the recent decision, however the Sapporo High Court, however, ruled that contracted employees have no legal protection against dismissal, and employers do not need any reasons. This is worrying, not only for the many non-tenured foreign teachers, but also for Japanese contracted workers in any field.

The Supreme Court reviews only a minority of the appeals submitted to it. If it refuses our case, we must be notified by the beginning of July. If it chooses our case, it may be a year or more before the case comes up. Only in very rare cases does the Supreme Court overturn decisions. They will either ratify the High Court's decision or set it aside and return the case to the High Court to do over (correctly!) The latter is the outcome that we are hoping for.

It is a rather narrow window, but on the other hand, we certainly do not intend to stop without giving the highest court the opportunity to correct the injustice of High and District Courts.

Thank you all for your long and comforting support.
Yours,
Gwendolyn Gallagher



The government refuses yet again to take action against discrimination, so once again public appeals are necessary.

Taking it to the Ministry of Education: Round Three
By Farrell Cleary

For four successive years the Ministry has received delegations with claims relating to the situation of foreign teachers at the Prefectural University of Kumamoto. The following brief account is based on notes made in March 2000.

Claims dealing with a number of issues involving foreign teachers had been submitted to the Ministry prior to the visit. The abridged English version of these claims:

-----------------------------

March 6, 2000

To Mr. Nakasone Hirofumi,
Minister of Education etc.

From:

The Committee for the "Day for Migrant & Immigrant Workers' Rights".

(The committee represented six unions and other organizations concerned with foreign workers including the NUGW, to which the PUK teachers belonged.)

The above-mentioned labour unions organizing the foreign workers in Japan jointly request the following:

1) Eliminate the discriminatory provisions against foreign teachers working at national and other public universties, such as limited term contracts and the limitation of their promotion to managerial positions. -Provide job security for non-regular (hijoukin) teachers and improve their working conditions.

2) Eliminate limited term contracts for foreign teachers working at other national and public institutions.

3) Do not guide private schools into making limited term contracts with foreign teachers.

4) Do not entrust private companies with classes taught at national and public schools.

5) Give guidance to Tokyo Kokusai Gakuen for early settlement of the labour dispute of the 16 union members at Tokyo Foreign Language College dismissed by Tokyo Kokusai Gakuen.

6) Give guidance to the Prefectural University of Kumamoto for early settlement of the labour dispute over the term limits of the foreign teachers.

7) Give guidance to Kobe City for early settlement of the dispute over the mass reduction of the AET teachers working at the public schools in Kobe City.

Four Ministry officials spoke, including one from the University Division (Mr. Ueki).

Mr. Hamada Kenichi (Social Democratic Party Diet Member) was there as a kind of sponsor for the delegation. He seemed pleased to see me, shook my hand, and obviously remembered being at the Ministry the year before with us.

Apart from the main claims summarised above, further letters were submitted on behalf of Gwen Gallagher and the Fukuoka General Union (dealing with the anomalous treatment of the Foreign Language Teachers (gaikokugokoushi) at Fukuoka University.

The Ministry spokespeople dealt with the issues as follows:

Re Discriminatory Limits:

Mr. Ueki referred to the Tokubetsu Sechi Hou (Showa 57/1982), the law making possible the employment of foreign teachers as regular staff in public universities, and making it possible for universities to impose term limits on those foreign teachers. He said that in 1999 there were 697 foreign teachers employed on regular contracts, including 121 professors (kyouju), 433 associate professors (joukyouju) and 143 assistant professors (koushi).

Of these, 180 were employed without term limits, including 42 professors, 110 associate professors and 28 assistant professors. (These figures need to be confirmed.)

The question of whether to impose limits was left to each university, and it would be made through the University Council (hyougikai), Faculty Meetings (kyoujukai), and ultimately the Presidents of the universities concerned.

As far as discrimination was concerned, there were three points to be made:

1) The imposition of term limits on foreign teachers favoured international exchange research (kokusai koryu kenkyu),

2) The imposition of term limits on foreign teachers allowed for "rotation" (sic), the replacing ("irekawari") of foreign teachers.

3) The imposition of term limits on foreign teachers encouraged the movement of teachers to other universities which was of benefit to both teachers and the universities.

For all of these reasons the Ministry did not think that the term limits were discriminatory.

He then discussed the promotion question and I'm afraid I didn't understand enough of that to risk a summary.

Another Ministry spokesperson talked about the situation in national schools (e.g. those affiliated to universities). There was a Ministry ȘgguidanceȘh (Heisei 3 /1991) to the effect that foreign nationals who passed the relevant exam were entitled to employment terms like Japanese people.

As far as the private sector was concerned, there was no guidance given by the Ministry, but there was no reason why non-nationals should be treated differently from Japanese.

Another spokesperson called Miyata said that the Ministry hoped there would be an appropriate ("tekisetsu") solution to the Tokyo Kokusai Gakuen dispute.

Re The PUK:

Mr Ueki said that there had been a settlement last March, the main points of which included:

1) the reemployment of the two teachers (Cynthia Worthington and Sandra Mitchell) for a one year period;
2) the understanding by the university of the teachers' hopes for regular employment and
3) the agreement to enter into sincere negotiations.

As far as the change of status from irregular part-time (hijoukin) employment to regular (joukin) employment, this was not something that was the subject for union negotiations.

After the relevant bureaucrats had dealt with the other items, there was time for questions.

The following is more or less what I tried to say in Japanese:

It was ironic that the Ministry should be talking about regularization not being subject to labour negotiations since the teachers had been reported as regular teachers to the Ministry and, according to Ministry guidelines, should have been employed as such.

I mentioned the meeting of a Kumamoto delegation with Ministry officials (including Messrs Arimatsu and Shimizu) last year and the Ministry's confirmation of what the PUK foreign teachers had been saying since 1993, and what the University had been denying all along: the fact that "full-time faculty member" ("sennin no kyouin") had to mean just that; "full-time faculty members" could not be properly employed as part-time (hijoukin) employees.

I said we had been waiting for a year and had still heard nothing from the Ministry regarding their investigation into the misreporting by the Prefecture.

Mr. Arimatsu, the representative from the Accreditation (sechi) Division said in response to this, and to questions from Mr. Kawaguchi (Fukuoka G.U.) and Mr. Hamada, that the Ministry had spoken to the Prefecture (the Governor being the final employer) in March of 1999. The Governor?/Prefecture had explained that they had acted in good faith in employing the full-time teachers (sennin kyouin) as part-timers (hijoukin).

The ministry had then asked the Prefecture to "teisei" (correct) the documents which had been submitted in 1993. The Prefecture had done so, changing the documents so that the four teachers involved were now not reported as full-time (sennin) but as part-time (kennin).

There were incredulous laughs from the union side of the table and muttered comments like, "Oh Orwell, they should be living at this hour...."). Mr. Kawaguchi pointed out that it would have been more logical for the Ministry to insist that the employment terms be corrected and the teachers be given regular employment.

I said that it was not simply a matter of the Ministry and the Prefecture going back and altering their documentary history to make it appear consistent. The teachers too were part of the equation. We had been asked to sign the "Acceptance of Employment" documents and had taken them to be solemn undertakings by the Prefecture, not only to the Ministry but to us as well. .

I suggested the Ministry was evading its responsibilities to the teachers involved, two of which were now being sacked for doing no more than defending the Ministry's own policy regarding the employment of full-time teachers.

There were actually some wry smiles and nods at this from the mainly junior bureaucrats (accompanied by one approaching 50) on the Ministry side.

Farrell Cleary is a Lecturer at the Prefectural University of Kumamoto.



A Public Appeal Concerning the Ongoing Case at the Prefectural University of Kumamoto
By Kirk Masden and Hanada Masanori

(The section by Farrell Cleary removed at the author's request--the HELP Journal Editor thought that what were actually rough notes were a submission to the Journal. Deep apologies from Arudou Debito--Ed.)

Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 00:51:54 +0900
From: Kirk Masden <masden@kumagaku.ac.jp>
Subject: [shakai] Appeal on behalf of Foreign Teachers at the PUK

Dear Shakai subscribers:

As debate on the Gallagher case continues on this list, I think it is important to remember that another important court case is in progress in southern Japan. Please read the following letter from Masanori Hanada and consider joining the 9,000 others who have lent their names to our appeal.

Kirk Masden is an Associate Professor at Kumamoto Gakuen Daigaku

==============

E/P>

Appeal on behalf of Foreign Teachers at the Prefectural University of Kumamoto, Japan

Since 1998, around 9,000 people from Kumamoto, Japan and all around the world have signed appeals and petitions on behalf of a group of teachers at the Prefectural University of Kumamoto (PUK) on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan. The original appeal was sponsored by a group of leading academics and professionals headed by Professor Masazumi Harada, internationally known for his work on Minamata disease.

The appeal was about to be presented on March 30, 1999 when a provisional settlement was reached allowing for the reemployment of the final two teachers, Dr. Cynthia Worthington and Ms. Sandra Mitchell. We had hoped that the provisional settlement would lead to a permanent and mutually satisfactory one. Unfortunately, however, the Prefectural University of Kumamoto chose not to negotiate in good faith but instead unilaterally terminated the employment of Dr. Worthington and Ms. Mitchell. This action led to a legal battle that is still in progress. With the upcoming APEC meetings to be held in Kyushu, the support group for the teachers would like to focus attention on this issue by submitting over 10,000 names and addresses of persons who support the petition. If you support the petition, which calls upon the Prefectural government and PUK to work actively toward a mutually satisfactory resolution, please add your name and address to this petition.

The support group plans to deliver the appeal and petitions to the new Governor of Kumamoto and to the President of the PUK in the near future. We are sure that your signature on this appeal will play an important role in persuading the authorities to soften their stance. We would be deeply grateful if you could add your name and address to the bottom of the accompanying letter and return it immediately to this e-mail address (masden@kumagaku.ac.jp).

Please feel free to forward this message to others whom you believe may be interested in our cause. Also, if you have friends or acquaintances who would like to sign the appeal but do not have access to the Internet, please go to the following address, print out a copy of the appeal (which is in Japanese) using one of the URLs shown below, and then mail the signed document(s) to us at the postal address shown below.

http://www.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~masden/mamorukai/shomei/shomei.pdf
(use this address if you have Adobe Acrobat software)
or
http://www.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~masden/mamorukai/shomei/shomei.html
(this can be viewed on any browser but is of compromised visual quality)

It should be noted that this e-mail message is a summary, not an exact translation, of the original Japanese appeal, which may be viewed at either of the URLs shown above.

We plan to submit our appeal on April 5 at the earliest. All names and addresses received by that date will be presented to the Governor and President.

Yours sincerely,
Masanori Hanada
Chair, Coalition Against Discrimination by the Prefectural University of Kumamoto
Professor, Kumamoto Gakuen University
Oe 2-5-1, Kumamoto-shi 862-8680
FAX: 81-96-372-0702

P.S. More information about this issue can be found at the following address:
http://www.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~masden/mamorukai/english/Ehome.htm
which contains the text of an earlier petition.

Culture and Unrealistic Expectations Challenge American Campuses in Japan
Temple manages to become one of the survivors while Minnesota State prepares
to pull out
By BETH McMURTRIE

The Chronicle of Higher Education
June 2, 2000, Page A56
http://chronicle.com

Tokyo--When a local television station approached a professor at Temple University's branch campus here to suggest filming one of his graduate classes, he thought it would be good publicity. Instead, he faced a mutiny. As soon as the Japanese students, all of whom were schoolteachers, saw video cameras, they walked out.

If their colleagues knew they were studying for advanced degrees, the students later explained, they'd be ridiculed for thinking they were special. Worse, their supervisors might punish them for taking time away from their professional duties. These teachers wanted to improve their skills, but only if they could do it in secret.

The incident, which took place in 1990, was prophetic. Like the camera-shy teachers, most Japanese turned out to be ambivalent toward the American universities that made their way here during the 1980's and 90's.

Temple was the first university to offer an American-style college education when it opened a branch campus, Temple University Japan, in 1982. Lured by a potentially lucrative market, more than 30 other institutions soon followed, establishing campuses across the country that promised a rapid improvement in
English-language skills and a cheaper alternative to studying abroad.

The effort was a fiasco. Only five American branch campuses have survived, and one of them is soon to close. Precarious financial arrangements have undermined most of the programs, but culture clashes have ultimately been the cause of their demise.

Many of the conflicts could have been avoided if the universities had bothered to study the culture they were about to enter. Few did, assuming that the Japanese would consume American education as enthusiastically as they did Big Macs.

"Why would we think we could take an entire system and transplant it into a foreign country, and it would work?" asks Christopher C. Gilman, who once headed a branch of Edmonds Community College in Kobe. "It didn't."

The allure of foreign markets is even hotter today, with higher education ranking among the United States' top service exports, according to the Department of Commerce. Universities in developing nations eager for sophisticated partners, along with the possibilities offered by the Internet for connecting colleges and consumers across borders, have American universities considering prospects in Asia, Eastern Europe, and other regions largely untouched by the American educational system.

Meanwhile, the American branch campuses remaining in Japan struggle to maintain their toehold. The stories of two of them -- Temple University Japan, which has managed to survive, and Minnesota State University-Akita, which will close in 2003 -- offer a cautionary tale about just how difficult it can be to export education.

The story of the branch-campus phenomenon in Japan is best understood through its students. Rika Watanuki spent much of her adolescence in Spain, where her mother was working. And that, she says, makes her an outcast in her native Japan, a country that remains remarkably insular despite having the world's second-largest economy.

Ms. Watanuki speaks fluent Spanish and English; most Japanese know only their native language. She socializes with an international crowd; Japan is 98-percent ethnically Japanese. She wants to work abroad; many of her peers still hope to land a lifetime job in a Japanese company. In short, she does not fit in.

When she returned home several years ago, Ms. Watanuki looked into attending a Japanese university, but found the curriculum at most institutions too rigid. Students were content, she says, to float passively through four years of school and do as they were told.

"Why go to university and pay that much money, if I'm not going to get anything out of it?" she asks, sitting at a table in Temple University Japan's small student lounge. On this campus, she found an international student body, and an atmosphere that stresses individual achievement rather than a group ethic. "Here," she says, "it's all up to you."

For many American educators, students like Ms. Watanuki are the reason they came to Japan. They believed that they had something to offer a country locked into a single model of education.

If primary and secondary education in Japan is famous for its rigor, college is infamous for its leisure. Undergraduate life has come to be accepted as a four-year party: a reprieve between the toughness of high school and the grind of work. Because graduation is all but guaranteed, students frequently skip classes and rarely study.

"We have three kinds of students," says Koichi Danno, executive vice president of the Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc. "Silent, smiling, and sleeping."

Though business and education leaders increasingly talk of reform, the system has worked because Japanese companies historically have preferred to select their recruits based on the university they attended, and then to provide on-the-job training. Recruiters reasoned that anyone smart enough to be accepted into a particular university was smart enough to make it in their company. What these students did during their undergraduate years did not make much difference.

American campuses, like Temple University Japan, pitched themselves as an alternative to that model.

"For Japanese students, it can be a shock, the notion that we expect them to have points of view that are presented and valued and discussed openly," says Richard Joslyn, dean of the campus. "For many of them, this is the first time they are treated that way."

Temple entered the education market in Japan slowly. In 1982, it began offering English-language courses. Today, the campus offers 10 undergraduate majors, and graduate degrees in economics, teaching English as a second language, business, and law. About 950 students are enrolled in the undergraduate or graduate programs, with another 750 enrolled in English-language or continuing-education courses.

The entire operation is housed in a nine-story office building on a busy street in Tokyo, a short bus ride away from the nearest subway stop. Students don't seem to mind the lack of atmosphere. Neon-drenched Tokyo holds plenty of allure for them, packing eight million people into a welter of nightclubs, shopping districts, and restaurants.

At Temple, students also have access to certain things not found in most Japanese universities, such as a large computer laboratory, Internet access, and a 50,000-volume library of books in English.

Courses are taught in English by a collection of about 75 Temple professors and visiting scholars from around the world. While Japanese students dominate, the student body is a mixture of nationalities, appealing to the sons and daughters of diplomats and international businessmen.

All of this creates a diverse environment, similar to that of Temple's home campus, in Philadelphia. During one week in April, students practiced their public-speaking skills during mock presentations in a business-writing class, examined the symbolism of the 1960's cult movie Easy Rider in a course called "Ideal America," and debated Isabella's actions in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.

"I hated Japanese education," says Hiroyuki Kitamura, a junior. His teachers, he says, were more interested in getting students to memorize facts than in getting them to understand concepts. Mr. Kitamura frequently skipped school, working a series of part-time jobs after high school before giving Temple University Japan a try.

The free-flowing discussions in class were hard to get used to, but he is now much happier than he would be at a Japanese university, he says. He likes the way professors talk to students and want them to understand what they're learning. "Since I entered T.U.J.," he says, "I can learn step by step."

Though it did achieve some stability, Temple University Japan was plagued with problems from the start. Like most American universities in Japan, it established its branch campus with the financial backing of a Japanese partner. Most such partners were businessmen looking to make a healthy profit.

That first year, Temple's partner, on his own, signed up twice as many students as the campus could handle, then promptly ran away with the tuition money, according to university officials. A subsequent partner got fed up with Tokyo's high rents and moved the campus to the suburbs, lengthening the commute for some students to two hours. Enrollment took a nosedive.

Up to this point, Temple was operating under a management contract to provide the curriculum, the faculty, and the administration, in exchange for a cut of the tuition. But in 1996, the university decided it would be better off alone. It has run in the red most of the years since then. The current deficit is $500,000, but Mr. Joslyn, the dean, says the campus won't shut down.

Temple got off relatively easy. Many campuses closed up after the recession hit and their Japanese investors pulled out. But money wasn't the only problem they faced. The investors, placed in charge of recruiting, over-enrolled classes or told students that they would certainly walk away with an American degree. Some pressured faculty members to expand class sizes, or grilled them about every purchase made for their classrooms.

For their part, some of the American administrators, blinded by the potential for profits, were all too willing to sacrifice quality or academic control in order to maximize income.

"The schools that came were only as deep, in some sense, as the business investors' pockets," says Mr. Gilman, who is educational-information officer for the Japan-United States Educational Commission in Tokyo, which oversees the Japanese Fulbright program. "Many of them were poorly conceived and folded rather quickly, which damaged the reputation of those that survived."

Much of the universities' struggle lay in trying to fit American higher education into a Japanese framework. American universities overestimated not only the market for their services, but also the English-speaking abilities of Japanese students and the willingness of the Japanese educational establishment to accept a foreign presence.

When they arrived in Japan in the 1980's, American educators imagined hordes of bright but frustrated nonconformists eagerly seeking them out. Instead, they attracted students who either couldn't get into Japanese universities or saw the English-language classes as a springboard to America. And high-school teachers, who carry enormous influence in Japan, did their best to steer students away from these foreign upstarts. The teachers' reputations often depended on getting students into the most-prestigious Japanese universities.

Americans also assumed that because Japanese students spend six years studying English in school, they would sail through their language classes. English-language instruction in Japanese schools is notoriously poor, however. As a result, students were stuck for months, sometimes years, in expensive language programs on the branch campuses, without improving enough to qualify for enrollment in the undergraduate programs. Not surprisingly, many dropped out and began badmouthing the American colleges.

American universities also failed to understand Japanese students' expectations for higher education. Students assumed that the branch campuses were similar to Japanese universities and would require little work. Then, when students flunked out, they and their parents demanded to know why. Some sued the Japanese partners, who had promised that anyone admitted would receive a degree. The Japanese press quickly got wind of the conflicts and began writing negative stories.

Some of the more ambitious programs, like Temple's, expected to tap into other markets: housewives who wanted to earn a college degree, midcareer professionals looking to expand their skills, high-school dropouts seeking a second chance. In Japan, where college is something undertaken between the ages of 18 and 22, such people have few outlets for their aspirations.

But instead of pent-up demand, Americans found cultural chasms almost too big to cross. Temple's graduate programs in teaching English as a second language, for example, have struggled to recruit students ever since they began. Despite a critical need for such training among high-school teachers, many school administrators frown on those who pursue graduate degrees. Temple even had to abandon its graduate-student directory because so many Japanese students didn't want their names in it.

Older students, particularly women, proved equally tricky to recruit. Women beyond traditional college age face enormous pressure to remain at home to take care of their families. Kimie Shigeta Duke, a 34-year-old senior at Temple University Japan, says that she had wanted to return to school and earn her bachelor's degree for years, but that her family had discouraged her. She still hasn't told her father that she's back in school, she says, for fear that he will think she is a bad wife.

To their shock, American campuses also discovered that they were not really wanted by Japan's educational establishment. Investors and local governments may have been interested in them as business ventures, but the powerful Ministry of Education refused to recognize them as universities.

Recognition, which is Japan's equivalent of accreditation, is crucial for a university to thrive. Many government agencies and some Japanese companies do not acknowledge degrees from unrecognized universities. Students at those institutions must pay taxes on their tuition fees and do not even qualify for discounted train passes, as other students do. Until recently, the education ministry did not allow Japanese graduate schools to accept students from universities that were not recognized, although many ignored that policy.

The ministry's criteria for recognition, which proved impossible for the American branch campuses to meet, varied over the years: They had to submit a 10-year curriculum in advance. They had to have a Japanese person as head of the program. Now, branch campuses are told that they must own some of their buildings and put substantial assets in Japanese banks.

"It's always a moving target," says Robert Reinstein, dean of Temple's law school and director of the university's overseas programs. "I've had discussions with the Ministry of Education practically every year for the past 18 years. When we ask, 'If we do this, can we get recognized?' they never say yes."

The ministry's defenders note that it had good reason to be skeptical of the upstarts, particularly after they began dropping like flies.

Yoriko Kawaguchi, an executive with Suntory Limited and a member of a government-appointed committee on higher-education reform, says she is sympathetic to foreign universities. But she also understands the government's caution. "I think to some extent it is relevant for the Ministry of Education to say you cannot rent 100 percent," she says, "because there is some permanency needed for academic institutions."

The ministry's resistance proved to be fatal for many American branch campuses. They were pushed to the back of the room at college fairs, or listed among the study- abroad programs in college guidebooks. In effect, they became nonentities in Japan.

The five American universities offering undergraduate degrees that remain in Japan are Temple, Minnesota State, Southern Illinois University Carbondale in Niigata, Heidelberg College in Sapporo, and Lakeland College in Tokyo. Soon there will be four.

Minnesota State University-Akita was born in 1990 amid extraordinarily high expectations. Officials of the Akita Prefecture, a district in northeastern Japan, believed that an American branch campus would jump-start their flagging economy.

Akita is as different from Tokyo as the farmlands of Iowa are from New York City. The main industry is rice farming; snowcapped mountains dominate the landscape. Like many other rural parts of Japan, local officials have struggled to find ways to keep their young people from fleeing to the big cities.

The Minnesota State University System, as it was then known, also anticipated financial gains, imagining that hundreds of Japanese students each year would funnel from the two-year Akita campus back to Minnesota for the remaining two years of their education. The deal was brokered with the support of
high-ranking Minnesota politicians, including then-Governor Rudy Perpich, who talked of business partnerships in Akita that ultimately never materialized.

The prefecture donated land and buildings worth $58-million to create the tiny campus on the outskirts of Yuwa Town, population 7,000, which borrowed $30-million to build dormitories and faculty housing. Minnesota pumped more than $1-million a year into the program.

Rather than create an anchor for economic development, though, the M.S.U.-Akita campus came to seem more like a curse. Enrollment was supposed to hit 925. It never reached 500, and this year it dropped below 300. After cutting back its investment, Minnesota decided last year to pull the plug: The campus will shut down in 2003. It was going to close last year, but a group of students persuaded visiting American administrators to keep it open a little while longer.

Temple has managed to survive the odds thanks to its larger size, its urban location, and the backing of its home university. But M.S.U.-Akita did not have those luxuries.

Perhaps the biggest miscalculation lay in the college's perceived allure. Minnesota was not a name that most Japanese had heard of. And they certainly weren't going to leave Tokyo or Yokohama or Osaka for a sparsely populated rural district. It proved to be a mistake that many American colleges would make in Japan.

"Americans have a bit of hubris: 'Our American system is good. Adjust to our system,'" says Takashi Inoguchi, a political-science professor at the University of Tokyo. "It doesn't work. You can't set up a university in the middle of nowhere."

Kenichi Ito, the mayor of Yuwa Town, maintains that the investment has been a wise one. An additional 400 people now live in the town, as students, administrators, or faculty members, he notes. He holds out hope that visits by U.S. Ambassador Walter Mondale and other well-connected Minnesotans will lead to business partnerships between Japanese and American companies.

But to some on the M.S.U.-Akita campus, the mayor is merely saving face. Through the lean years, professors say, they were constantly pressured by town officials to increase class sizes, which typically were around 20, and to lower academic standards in order to improve the bottom line.

"We have taken so much flak because of our standards, because of attendance requirements, because of failing students for their inability to perform," says Brad Blackstone, an assistant professor who teaches English as a second language.

Faculty members, many of whom had moved to Japan and have been on the campus since the beginning, are angry at Minnesota for pulling out of the deal. They say M.S.U.-Akita, although it has lost money, has been a lifesaver for many students who couldn't fit into Japan's one-size-fits-all educational system. "In the classroom, I've seen so much success," says Mr. Blackstone.

The prefectural government, meanwhile, is convinced that the American system works. The campus may become a branch of a new local university, retaining much of its current style, the same professors, classes taught in English, and the tough, American-style grading system. The key difference: it would be a real Japanese university.

The Akita prefecture's plan to create an American-style campus once Minnesota State departs is part of an educational- reform movement sweeping Japan, driven in large part by the country's decade-long economic recession. Private universities are springing up, promising an education that will train students to compete in the global economy. The irony, some say, is that the Japanese want to make their universities more like Western colleges, yet are not interested in having Western colleges on their shores.

The challenges facing higher education in Japan may be found in the offices of Bloomberg L.P., an international financial-information company. A few blocks from the bustle of the Ginza shopping district, Bloomberg's Tokyo office employs about 20 Temple University Japan graduates.

Shinya Naito is one of them. In 1990, after failing to get into several top universities, he asked himself whether he really wanted to become a Japanese company man. Mr. Naito's family discouraged him from applying to Temple, for fear he was shutting himself out of the Japanese system. But he decided that he wasn't interested in joining the system. "If you start to work for a Japanese company, you behave like a private in the army," he says. "'Fax this!' 'Yes, sir!' 'Get lunch!' 'Yes, sir!'"

In Bloomberg's sales division, he has independence and responsibility. Without the training he received at Temple, Mr. Naito says, there's no way he could have handled the job.

Mr. Naito is so enthusiastic about Temple University Japan that he visits local high schools to recruit students. "In the past, only kids who failed university entrance exams went to T.U.J.," he says. "Now we get some top students."

Still, he acknowledges that the once-bright prospects of American colleges here are now quite dim. "American branch campuses," he says, "have a very bad reputation in Japan."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Chronicle of Higher Education may be found at http://chronicle.com

Copyright 2000 by The Chronicle of Higher Education

JALT HELP/PALE JOURNAL OF PROFESSIONAL ISSUES
SPRING 2001, ENDS

E

E/TD>

ADDENDUM 2009:  EVIDENCE THAT THE AUSTRALIAN MAGAZINE'S "OUR OTHER MAN IN JAPAN" WAS REPRINTED HERE UNDER PERMISSION GRANTED DECEMBER 19, 2000.  IN RESPONSE TO A LETTER IN 2009CLAIMING COPYRIGHT INFRACTION.

BEGINS

Hello [contacter], and thank you for your attachment.  My apologies for my late reply.  It has been a busy week, and it has taken a little time to visit my safe deposit box and retrieve backed-up emails that are nearly ten years old.

Here is the permission I received from a M. Mairead Sweeney of The Australian Magazine, Dated December 19, 2000, to reprint the article "Our Other Man in Japan".

============= PERMISSION GRANTED TEXT BEGINS =================
From ???@??? Tue Dec 19 08:35:29 2000
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From: "Magazine,  Australian" <ausmag@matp.newsltd.com.au>
To: "'debito@debito.org'" <debito@debito.org>
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Dear Dave
Apologies for the delay in getting back to you.
There is no problem reproducing the article, as long as credit is given to
The Australian Magazine.

Happy Christmas.

Regards
Mairead Sweeney
The Australian Magazine
============= PERMISSION GRANTED TEXT ENDS =================


Credit is, and always has been, given to The Australian Magazine.

Please review the following context from which this is taken.  Here is my request to The Australian Magazine, dated December 4, 2000, for reproduction permissions to print "Our Other Man in Japan".  It is in raw text format (importing email from an old program), for copyright permission, followed by the exchanges which resulted in the abovementioned permission being granted.  My name back then was David Aldwinckle (it is now Arudou Debito, due to naturalization as a Japanese citizen).

I would appreciate receiving your acknowledgment of these permission-granted circumstances as soon as possible.  I also wish you would do your homework before sending "notice" letters to my friends.  My friend, [...] , who was also sent your "notice" letter, is hereby cc-ed with this reply.  Kindly cc him your acknowledgment as well.

Arudou Debito (ne David Aldwinckle) in Sapporo, Japan

August 2, 2009


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Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 13:20:51 +0900
To: ausmag@matp.newsltd.com.au
From: Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle <debito@debito.org>
Subject: Inquiry to The Australian about old article
Cc: debito@debito.org
X-UIDL: bc68a5de1a75c6385b5848adcc747ef6

To whom it may concern:

I am looking for an old article of yours which appeared in THE AUSTRALIAN
MAGAZINE.  The date is not written anywhere on the pages, but here are the
details as I know them:

PUBLICATION:  The Australian Magazine
ARTICLE TITLE:  "Our Other Man in Japan"
AUTHOR:  Richard McGregor
CONTENTS:  about Gregory Clark's life and times here in Japan
PAGE NUMBERS:  pp. 27 to 41?
APPROXIMATE DATE:  1993-94 (article mentions Hosokawa as Prime Minister)

Could you please tell me of the date and issue number etc. for the article
for proper citation?

Thank you very much,
Dave Aldwinckle in Sapporo, Japan
(your contact details courtesy of Mr Steven Lunn, Tokyo Correspondent)

=======================
Debito/Dave's new website and domain name:
http://www.debito.org
Catalog of domestic discrimination issues:
http://www.debito.org/TheCommunity
Background on Businesses Excluding Foreigners in Hokkaido:
http://www.issho.org/BENCI

=========== PERMISSION REQUEST ENDS ==================

And here is the answer I received, or rather the communication as it transpired (it took a few exchanges of emails):

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From: "Magazine,  Australian" <ausmag@matp.newsltd.com.au>
To: "'Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle'" <debito@debito.org>
Subject: RE: Inquiry to The Australian about old article
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 17:03:22 +1100
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Hi Dave
Well the good news it that I've had success in locating the article.  The
details are:

The Australian Magazine, 16th October 1993, Edition 1.

If you need further information, please do not hestitate to contact me.

Regards
Mairead Sweeney
The Australian Magazine.



-----Original Message-----
From: Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle [mailto:debito@debito.org]
Sent: Monday, 4 December 2000 4:34
To: Magazine, Australian
Subject: RE: Inquiry to The Australian about old article


Thanks for your speedy reply!

I only have a photocopy of the article in question, and no, I'm afraid it
(oddly enough) doesn't give the date etc where it indicates the page number.
I'm afraid that you have all the information that I have.

Thanks for looking.  I would really appreciate it and don't mind if it takes
a few days.  It's quite a big article with a full-page photograph of Gregory
Clark.

Dave Aldwinckle
Sapporo
//////////////////////////

At 4:16 PM +1100 12/4/00, Magazine,  Australian wrote:
> Dear Dave
> I presume you don't have the front cover of the magazine, just the pages
in
> question (?). Where it says the page number, normally it has the Issue
Date
> also.  This could be just on the more recent editions, I don't know.  I
have
> had a quick look through our computerised archives but have found nothing
> yet.  It may take a day or two to locate the information you require.
>
>
> Regards
>
> Mairead Sweeney
> The Australian Magazine
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle [mailto:debito@debito.org]
> Sent: Monday, 4 December 2000 3:21
> To: ausmag@matp.newsltd.com.au
> Cc: debito@debito.org
> Subject: Inquiry to The Australian about old article
>
>
> To whom it may concern:
>
> I am looking for an old article of yours which appeared in THE AUSTRALIAN
> MAGAZINE.  The date is not written anywhere on the pages, but here are the
> details as I know them:
>
> PUBLICATION:  The Australian Magazine
> ARTICLE TITLE:  "Our Other Man in Japan"
> AUTHOR:  Richard McGregor
> CONTENTS:  about Gregory Clark's life and times here in Japan
> PAGE NUMBERS:  pp. 27 to 41?
> APPROXIMATE DATE:  1993-94 (article mentions Hosokawa as Prime Minister)
>
> Could you please tell me of the date and issue number etc. for the article
> for proper citation?
>
> Thank you very much,
> Dave Aldwinckle in Sapporo, Japan
> (your contact details courtesy of Mr Steven Lunn, Tokyo Correspondent)
>
> =======================
> Debito/Dave's new website and domain name:
> http://www.debito.org
> Catalog of domestic discrimination issues:
> http://www.debito.org/TheCommunity
> Background on Businesses Excluding Foreigners in Hokkaido:
> http://www.issho.org/BENCI


=======================
Debito/Dave's new website and domain name:
http://www.debito.org
Catalog of domestic discrimination issues:
http://www.debito.org/TheCommunity
Background on Businesses Excluding Foreigners in Hokkaido:
http://www.issho.org/BENCI

From ???@??? Mon Dec 04 16:39:12 2000
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In-Reply-To:
<25EAA402DE2FD111B8400000F875354809CC63AD@sydexchange.matp.newsltd.com.au>
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 15:49:16 +0900
To: "Magazine,  Australian" <ausmag@matp.newsltd.com.au>
From: Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle <debito@debito.org>
Subject: RE: Inquiry to The Australian about article on Gregory Clark
X-UIDL: 3f533fa822bf35aa7537f6496a033048

At 5:03 PM +1100 12/4/00, Magazine,  Australian wrote:
> Hi Dave
> Well the good news it that I've had success in locating the article.  The
> details are:
>
> The Australian Magazine, 16th October 1993, Edition 1.
>
> If you need further information, please do not hestitate to contact me.
>
> Regards
> Mairead Sweeney
> The Australian Magazine.

Excellent!  Thank you very much!

Would it be possible to receive permission from The Australian to reprint
this article in full in our next issue of NPO Japan Association for Language
Teaching (JALT)'s Journal of Professional Issues?

We are a non-profit organization and our publication fees are funded by both
JALT and from our subscribers (about 75 people).

To find out more about our Journal and to see back issues, please see
http://www.debito.org/PALEJournals.html

To find out more about JALT, please see
http://www.jalt.org/

Thank you very much for your time, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,
Dave Aldwinckle
One JALT Journal of Professional Issues Editor

=======================
Debito/Dave's new website and domain name:
http://www.debito.org
Catalog of domestic discrimination issues:
http://www.debito.org/TheCommunity
Background on Businesses Excluding Foreigners in Hokkaido:
http://www.issho.org/BENCI

From ???@??? Wed Dec 13 08:30:03 2000
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From: "Magazine,  Australian" <ausmag@matp.newsltd.com.au>
To: "'Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle'" <debito@debito.org>
Subject: RE: M. Sweeney, could I please have an answer?
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 14:07:45 +1100
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Dave
I have forwarded your e-mail onto the Deputy Editor, Steven Fosbery so I am
waiting on an answer from him.  Sorry about the delay but there is nothing I
can do until I hear back from Steve.

Regards
Mairead

-----Original Message-----
From: Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle [mailto:debito@debito.org]
Sent: Tuesday, 12 December 2000 2:06
To: Magazine, Australian
Subject: M. Sweeney, could I please have an answer?


M. Sweeney, second repost.  Could I please have an answer?  Thanks.  Dave
Aldwinckle

> Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 15:48:03 +0900
> To: "Magazine,  Australian" <ausmag@matp.newsltd.com.au>
> From: Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle <debito@debito.org>
> Subject: RE: Inquiry to The Australian about article
> Cc:
> Bcc:
> X-Attachments:
>
> Hello.  Sorry to bother you, but is there any word on this?  Thank you
very
>much, Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle in Sapporo
>
> > Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 15:49:16 +0900
> > To: "Magazine,  Australian" <ausmag@matp.newsltd.com.au>
> > From: Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle <debito@debito.org>
> > Subject: RE: Inquiry to The Australian about article on Gregory Clark
> > Cc:
> > Bcc: PALE Officers
> > X-Attachments:
> >
> > At 5:03 PM +1100 12/4/00, Magazine,  Australian wrote:
> > > Hi Dave
> > > Well the good news it that I've had success in locating the article.
The
> > > details are:
> > >
> > > The Australian Magazine, 16th October 1993, Edition 1.
> > >
> > > If you need further information, please do not hestitate to contact
me.
> > >
> > > Regards
> > > Mairead Sweeney
> > > The Australian Magazine.
> >
> > Excellent!  Thank you very much!
> >
> > Would it be possible to receive permission from The Australian to
reprint
>this article in full in our next issue of NPO Japan Association for
Language
>Teaching (JALT)'s Journal of Professional Issues?
> >
> > We are a non-profit organization and our publication fees are funded by
both
>JALT and from our subscribers (about 75 people).
> >
> > To find out more about our Journal and to see back issues, please see
> > http://www.debito.org/PALEJournals.html
> >
> > To find out more about JALT, please see
> > http://www.jalt.org/
> >
> > Thank you very much for your time, and we look forward to hearing from
you.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> > Dave Aldwinckle
> > One JALT Journal of Professional Issues Editor
> >
> >
>
>

=======================
Debito/Dave's new website and domain name:
http://www.debito.org
Catalog of domestic discrimination issues:
http://www.debito.org/TheCommunity
Background on Businesses Excluding Foreigners in Hokkaido:
http://www.issho.org/BENCI

From ???@??? Tue Dec 19 08:35:29 2000
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From: "Magazine,  Australian" <ausmag@matp.newsltd.com.au>
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Dear Dave
Apologies for the delay in getting back to you.
There is no problem reproducing the article, as long as credit is given to
The Australian Magazine.

Happy Christmas.

Regards
Mairead Sweeney
The Australian Magazine



From ???@??? Tue Dec 19 08:58:30 2000
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Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 08:39:15 +0900
To: "Magazine,  Australian" <ausmag@matp.newsltd.com.au>
From: Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle <debito@debito.org>
Subject: Re: Reprint Permission Granted
X-UIDL: 984c3e3af294ab189747261fabeb72f8

At 9:55 AM +1100 12/19/00, Magazine,  Australian wrote:
> Dear Dave
> Apologies for the delay in getting back to you.
> There is no problem reproducing the article, as long as credit is given to
> The Australian Magazine.
>
> Happy Christmas.
>
> Regards
> Mairead Sweeney
> The Australian Magazine

Thank you very much!  Credit will be given as due, I promise.  Best wishes
back for your lovely hot summer holiday season (gnashing of teeth).  Dave
Aldwinckle in Sapporo

=======================
Debito/Dave's new website and domain name:
http://www.debito.org
Catalog of domestic discrimination issues:
http://www.debito.org/TheCommunity
Background on Businesses Excluding Foreigners in Hokkaido:
http://www.issho.org/BENCI

From ???@??? Tue Dec 19 08:58:30 2000
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From: "Magazine,  Australian" <ausmag@matp.newsltd.com.au>
To: "'Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle'" <debito@debito.org>
Subject: RE: Reprint Permission Granted
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Now now no jealousy!  I have to admit it is lovely - very strange for me
though because I'm from Ireland so this hot weather is very pleasant.  Nice
change for the Christmas season!

Enjoy.
Regards
Mairead

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