BLACKLIST / GREENLIST
OF JAPANESE UNIVERSITIES
ORIGINAL STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
(for historical purposes)
AND
APPLICATION FORM
(for submitting new universities to either Black or Greenlist)
(first made public May 14, 1998)

Hello Parties concerned about employment discrimination towards non-citizens in Japanese universities:

After reading several recent job position announcements placed by National and Public universities, I have come to realize that many, if not most, Japanese universities are refusing to hire non-citizens under the same employment conditions as native staff.

The reason for this? Up until last year, for National and Public universities (kokkou ritsu dai--the Private universities (watakushi ritsu dai) can make their own rules), the law was on their side: foreigners could not be hired for non-contractual full-time positions (meaning not hired with tenure) because they were classified as "civil servants".

However, this is no longer the case. As of late 1997, with passing of the Sentaku Ninkisei Hou and also Kokuritsu mata wa Kouritsu no daigaku ni okeru gaikokujin kyouin no ninyou tou ni kansuru tokubetsu sochihou--click here for page one and page two of two) laws have changed to allow all educational institutions of higher learning to offer jobs (granted, at th epresent time, not at top-level kanrishoku positions like gakuchou) on terms they themselves decide. This includes granting tenure to non-citizens in National and Public universities.

Still, old habits die hard. The job announcement (click here to see it) which made me decide to create this Blacklist was from the Department of Policy Science and International Relations, College of Law and Letters, The University of the Ryuukyuus, Okinawa, and it offered innocent job-seekers a Trojan Horse. After taking pains to say that it wasn't a dead-end "gaikokujin kyoushi" position, they offered a "koushi"/"jokyouju" position (later clarified to be a "GAIKOKUJIN kyouin" position) with a 3-year term-limit--essentially the same as a "gaikokujin kyoushi"--implicitly offering the excuse that they were compelled by civil-servant law to abide with contracts for full-time foreigners. That is, in a word, a lie, and one that job-seekers should be on the lookout for as a demonstration of bad faith.

The reason why we need to start pushing matters now is this:

For the first time ever, Japanese universities are able to decide for themselves their terms of employment, no excuses. Up until and including the present, most Japanese universities grant tenure to Japanese upon hiring (many even at entry-level positions), or will generally grant tenure or tenure review when hiring a part-time Japanese for a full-time post.

However, most Japanese universities will not do the same for foreigners precisely because they are foreigners, putting them perpetually in delineated gaikokujin positions with term-limited contracts. As plenty of non-naturalized Japanese have tenure in overseas institutions, this is unfair and unnecessary--and by no means compulsory.

Thus, if a Japanese educational institution decides to continue the discriminatory practice of not even considering foreigners for tenure, then they should be known about. Conversely, if they treat foreigners the same as Japanese staff, likewise.

We need a list of those universities, both good and bad, and I need your help to make it. My proposal is below:

Thank you for reading this,

Dave Aldwinckle
Sapporo, Japan

ORIGINAL BLACKLIST (AND GREENLIST) PROPOSAL

We need to create a blacklist of Japanese universities to encourage them to reform.

We need a concrete base for claiming why certain universities are discriminating (refusal to grant tenure to foreigners, history of employment abuses, etc. with names, dates, and figures). Anonymity is not preferred (to weed out hearsay), and we will need a means to check up on allegations so as to not give claimants a free rein to bad-mouth the university if they were unprofessional themselves.

My envisioned format is like this (for example, the most famous case now in court: Gwen Gallagher of Asahikawa University):

EMPLOYMENT ABUSE: contract nonrenewal of foreign faculty member, after 12 years of service, for nonprofessional reasons (stated by university in court but later denied in public: the need for "fresh gaijin"); refusal to grant or consider tenure for non-Japanese faculty now or in future; despite a court decision (karishoubun) stateing that their faculty member's firing was illegal, and that hersalary and "status" must be restored retroactive to the date of firing until the conclusion of the lawsuit, with the university agreeing in a court-sponsored settlement to reinstate her, firing her again at the conclusion of the school year.; internal teachers' union that has been ineffectual and conspiratory against plaintiff.

SOURCE OF INFORMATION (DATED: 1995-98): Gwendolyn Gallagher, plaintiff, gaikokujin kyoushi (see http://www.debito.org/activistspage.html#ninkiseigallagher)

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
APPLICATION FORMS

If you have an experience or knowledge that you feel may be useful, please send that information as per the paradigm below to me here:

NAME OF UNIVERSITY: (please state whether National, Public or Private)

LOCATION: (street, city, prefecture, please)

EMPLOYMENT ABUSE: (please state whether alleged or recorded in press, school catalog, or court record, with reference if possible, and be as detailed as you like. The more detail, the better, but response may be condensed):

SOURCE OF INFORMATION: (Please provide an email address or contact details so that the reader knows I'm not making this up. If you prefer anonymity, all right, but please give a specific reason why, and some sort of moniker or position name to establish to the readership that you know what you are talking about. Optimal sources of information are publicly-emailed job position announcements, which are official statements of the university and also freely-quotable public documents.)

Do your best not to go on hearsay. Rumor is toxic to trust.

Moreover, I don't want to get sued, so unless I can get secure substantiation (if not names, then page numbers from university employment statutes, newspaper articles, court documents numbers, or the like), I'm going to be pretty ginger about making information public. If in doubt, email me and let's see what we can do.

GREENLIST APPLICATION

NAME OF UNIVERSITY: (please state whether National, Public or Private)

LOCATION: (street, city, prefecture, please)

GOOD EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE: (for example, number of non-Japanese tenured, out of how many foreign staff, and when (to ensure that it's not just a matter of tokenism); if there is tenure review for non-Japanese, after how many years of service, and is it a standardized evaluation system--not just one given after patronage, etc):

SOURCE OF INFORMATION: (Please provide an email address or contact details so that the reader knows I'm not making this up. If you prefer anonymity, all right, but please give a specific reason why, and some sort of moniker or position name to establish to the readership that you know what you are talking about.)

That's all. Thanks for your assistance. With your help we can get the law to do what it is supposed to do: help the participants in this society live better lives.

Dave Aldwinckle
Sapporo
email me here

(TO SEE THE BLACKLIST, CLICK HERE)

(TO SEE THE GREENLIST, CLICK HERE)