Uni professor under investigation over allegations of sexual assault
THE Shanghai University of Finance and Economics is investigating a professor accused of sexually assaulting a student.
The announcement by the university came after a series of posts were widely spread online on Friday.
The student poster said that a professor at the university’s school of accountancy had locked her in his car and sexually assaulted her on campus a month ago.
On its official Weibo account, the university has said the professor’s surname is Qian. No charges have yet been laid and he has not responded publicly to the charges.
Shanghai Daily could not immediately contact the man for a response.
The writer said she was admitted into a master’s program in accountancy at the university in June and had been taught by the professor, who showed “excessive kindness” to her including sending out-of-hours WeChat messages, calling her “baby” and saying he wanted to embrace her. She posted screenshots of the alleged messages.
She said that after class on the night of November 6, she stayed on with classmates to discuss homework. When it was her turn, the cleaner was to close the classroom and Qian offered to drive her to the university gate while saying he would explain the homework on the way.
After a short distance, the lecturer stopped the vehicle, locked the doors, and sexually assaulted her, she said.
She also posted two audio clips, which she said were recorded in the car after the assault. In the clips, a woman is heard crying, questioning why the man had done such a thing to her, while the man asks her to treat him as a lover.
She said the professor continued to harass her on
WeChat while she collected evidence under the guidance of a lawyer.
She posted further screenshots of WeChat messages, in which the man appears to admit to the assault in the car.
She said she had already passed all the evidence to the university.
According to his online profile, the man is 55 years old and a graduate of the university. He has taught there since 1986 and is now an associate professor. He is also an independent board member of several listed companies.
Teacher assaults
The university said it had set up a team to investigate the event and that, if the allegations were found to be true, the teacher would be treated in accordance with the law and university regulations.
Last Thursday, a day before the allegations went viral, the
Ministry of Education released details of eight new cases of teachers who had breached their professional code of conduct. Details of four cases were released in April, and six in July.
Among the most recent eight, five were sexual. These include a teacher, Li, at the Pear River College of Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, who harassed a female student on WeChat and had a sexual relationship with another. Li has been fired and his teaching qualification revoked.
In another case, Liu, a teacher at Guiyang Concord College of Sino-Canada, was arrested for inappropriate contact with students and banned from teaching for life.
A foreign teacher is serving a five-year prison term for sexual offenes concerning a girl at an RYB Kindergarten in Qingdao, Shandong Province, and will be expelled from China after serving the term.