Sacked professor slams 'literary inquisition'

A Baptist University professor hit back on Friday against the “literary inquisition” that led to his sacking over the controversial last week.

Professor Victor Sit Fung-shuen was fired on Tuesday because of an “inaccurate statement” that the book – which he co-authored – makes against Chinese University, and because he tried to shift the blame for its authorship onto subordinates. Those were the findings of a four-member panel set up to investigate the matter by Baptist University.

On Friday Sit said the panel’s conclusions were “absolutely unacceptable” and biased, and he was trying to have them overturned.

“The panel failed to objectively and comprehensively consider the information provided by me, and failed to give me an opportunity to defend myself,” said Sit, former director of the university’s Advanced Institute for Contemporary China Studies, in a statement.

The discusses changes in the city since the handover. In it Sit wrote that the introduction of liberal studies had “facilitated an invasion of universal values from the West into schools”.

“For example, the general education courses at Chinese University are sponsored by, and its teaching material written with the assistance of, a United States fund. Its teaching direction has in practice been directed by the fund,” he wrote.