A university professor accused of molesting female students multiple times has been allowed to keep teaching at his university, school officials said Wednesday.
According to Choong-Ang University, the unnamed professor was accused of sexual abuse earlier this year. Following an internal investigation by a school human rights center, the professor admitted his “inappropriate actions” and recently offered to resign.
The university, however, decided to accept his resignation after the end of the semester, allowing the accused to keep teaching his classes.
“We only have a few classes left anyway and it is hard to find a replacement for him now, so we allowed him to teach the remainder of the semester,” a school official told local media. “But we ordered him not to meet students in his office.”
The incident set off a public furor, with students claiming the university was insensitive to victims of sexual abuse. Earlier this year, Kongju National University found itself embroiled in controversy after it allowed convicted sex offenders to continue teaching at the school.
The case at Choong-Ang is also the latest in a string of sexual abuse cases of professors taking advantage of their students.
In a separate case, a Seoul court on Wednesday issued an arrest warrant for a professor of Seoul National University on charges of sexually harassing his 20-something intern and several other students who took his class.
A recent survey by the Presidential Committee on Young Generation showed that 65.3 percent of students who fell victim to sexual harassment did not take any action. Their main concern was that they were “afraid of disadvantages they might face,” indicating that many sexual abuse cases by professors are not reported to the authorities.
By Yoon Min-sik and news reports()
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
