Jeju National University under fire for sexual harassment

Jeju National University has launched a comprehensive investigation of a professor over verbal abuse and sexual harassment allegations.

Several departments including the human rights center at the university are investigating whether students had to put up with verbal abuse and sexual harassment from a professor on multiple occasions. The professor’s name remains unknown.

The professor in questions has been hit with a slew of workplace misconduct allegations ranging from forcing students to buy expensive academic books and labor exploitation to scheduling classes outside school hours.

Earlier this month, a score of fourth-year multimedia design students formed an emergency task force and staged a class boycott in protest against the professor students claim had verbally abused and degraded them for years, including by attacking students’ looks and sexually harassing them.

The probe comes only a few weeks after students at Jeju National University hung handwritten posters outlining the accusations leveled against the professor, one of which read in bold letters, “Professor, how does one make coffee in a ‘sexy way’?”

Yim Hyun-su (hyunsu@heraldcorp.com)