[Special Feature] The revival of McCarthyism in Korea’s educational system

Lee Yong-seok holds a sign in front of Gyeonggi Provincial Educational Office on August 6, reading "Stop witchhunting."

Nam Jong Yeong for the Hankyoreh 21

There is an old saying that the one who breaks a taboo himself becomes the subject of taboo. Sangdong High School teacher Lee Yong-seok is a case in point. The Gyeonggi Province Educational Office suspended him from teaching for three months.

The reason behind his suspension involves a petition presented by some 140 parents of students to the Gyeonggi Province Educational Office on June 26. The reprimand they requested was as follows:

① Lee Yong-seok refused to salute the national flag at the morning meeting of the School Management Committee, and in so doing took a stance of not acknowledging the government of South Korea. Furthermore, he educated his students to reject the Korean nation and its flag. ② He used class time to tell his students not to join the army, explaining that with North-South reunification set to take place in the near future, enlisted students would learn only of a culture of violence and obedience. ③ He also taught that the famous General Lee Sun-shin was a fabricated hero, saying that he could not understand how the Korean people could respect him so much, thus unleashing his biased values upon the students.

After he was told of his punishment on August 7, Lee Yong-seok began a one-man protest outside of the Gyeonggi Province Educational Office in the 34-degree Celsius heat and humidity. This reporter found him alone, crouching on the asphalt outside the Office, enduring the heat while reading a book. The Board of Discipline requested a three-month suspension for him to the superintendent of education, and now all that remains is to carry out the formalities.

The August 4 meeting of the Board of Discipline was no different from an inspection of Lee’s beliefs. Merely an updated version of the Belief Inspection Committee during South Korea’s dictatorships, this committee took issue with the teacher’s "views of the nation" and "biased values," and, expressing worry for the country, unanimously approved his three-month suspension. Though some committee members called for his dismissal if he shows no "signs of repentance" after three months, the committee settled with the suspension alone.

Requesting that Lee be given a heavy punishment - either dismissal or suspension - and participating in the Board of Discipline’s proceedings on August 4, Kim Seong-gi, a senior official at the Gyeonggi Province Educational Office, said on August 8 that teachers "can plant biased values in the minds of their charges, and as Lee breached the school’s stance of impartiality as well as the right of the students to learn, we gave him a three-month suspension." In response to a question from a reporter whether there had been any legal discussion in regards to infringement on the freedoms of conscience and belief, Kim replied that "we had no legal discussions" and that "we merely punished him on the basis of the civil petition we received in accordance with the National Civil Servant Law."

The conflict between Lee and his students’ parents began with the school planning to hold an unofficial college entrance practice examination forbidden by the Ministry of Education. Lee opposed the holding of the test, which had been set for last March, but parents protested, wanting their children to sit for the exam regardless of its legality.

Then, Lee’s refusal to salute the flag was covered in the Chosun Ilbo, and his problems expanded from there. However, the Board of Discipline has not investigated the fact that the school held an unofficial preparation test against Ministry of Education decree, nor did it investigate the fact that the vice-principal, at the direction of the principal himself, had ghostwritten the parents’ appeal.

Director Kim said that these were matters "unrelated to [Lee’s] discipline" and that "what is clear is that Lee violated the proper courtesy to be afforded to the nation and its flag." Rather than probing the causality behind the incident, the Board of Discipline merely took up the issue of Lee’s failure to salute the flag and decided which punishment to mete out.

In truth, this heavy punishment was all too predictable. The Gyeonggi Province Educational Office was following the precedents set by the courts. Of course, such methods show that no progress has been made at all since the Yushin Period of more than 30 years ago.

When Park Chung-hee’s Yushin regime began in 1972, a teacher at the Osa Church Sunday School in Gwangyang, Jeonnam, demanded that his students not salute the flag. For this, he was sentenced to a year and four months in prison, of which he served over nine.

In 1973, six high school students at the Kimhae Girls High School were expelled for not saluting the flag. The Supreme Court ruled that "religious freedom is guaranteed only so long as it does not interfere with school rules and discipline," releasing the surprising judgment that mere school rules were of higher precedence than the constitutionally protected freedoms of religion and conscience. Law school students now regard this decision as a scornful representation of the Yushin court system.

But this line of thought did not end with the Yushin Period. Diversity at school has been repressed unceasingly. Only three years ago, in his application for admission to Yeongseok High School, Park Jun Gyu wrote that "due to religious beliefs, understand that I will not salute the national flag." His admittance was rejected. At that time as well, the Gyeonggi Province Educational Office responded that "the rejection of admission is a legitimate exercise of Yeongseok High School’s right to choose students." In other words, the mere right of a school to choose its students outweighed students’ freedoms of conscience and belief.

This is why the disciplining of Lee Yong-seok is nothing new. If nothing else, this punishment shows that the policies of Park Chung-hee’s Yushin regime have been preserved, 34 years after the fact.

Lee Yong-seok declared that he would use legal procedures to prove the injustice of the punishment he faces. No Yong-rae, official of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union, said, "If there are objections, requests for review may be presented to the Request Examination Board, but if the board declines to take the case, the only resort is litigation."

Chairman of the Bucheon Alliance of School Parents, O Seong-gun, said that "one teacher at Simgok Elementary School received 1 million won (US$1,120) in bribes and attacked a disabled child, but the Gyeonggi Province Educational Office rejected his letter of resignation, giving him a mere two-month suspension instead." He continued, "The Office of Education doesn’t understand when a teacher is unqualified. Even if there is something not right, it remains unfixed for a long time."

The Peace and Human Rights Alliance, the Dasan Human Rights Center, and 37 other organizations that were assembled for the Human Rights Organization’s Banquet Meeting declared the punishment against Lee to be a censorship of belief and conscience, and adopted a policy of challenging it both socially and legally.

On August 9, the Gyeonggi Provincial Superintendent of Education Kim Jin-chun gave his final seal of approval to the request for the suspension. Lee and his colleagues thus were forced to put to rest any hopes they had held. The day fell exactly 34 years after Park Jung-hee’s Yushin regime had made the pledge of allegiance towards the flag mandatory at all schools. For 34 years, students have without fail memorized the oath to "devote their hearts and bodies" for "the glory of the fatherland, [Korean] people and South Korea’s state flower."

One blogger that has been following this incident wrote, "all [Lee] did was to shout out that the salute of the flag was not an obligation but a choice." Lee shows up every day at 11 a.m. in front of the Gyeonggi Province Educational Office to picket for the withdrawal of his punishment, and stands there, like a scarecrow. The officials pass by on their lunch breaks, trying to avoid the sun, while the South Korean flag waves listlessly atop the Office of Education’s roof.

This article was translated by Daniel Rakove.