By Kim Se-jeong
A professor at the University of Seoul has been accused of sexually harassing a student, the latest in a series of sexual misconduct allegations sweeping the nation’s ivory towers.
The university said Monday it halted all classes of Prof. Park Man-yeop of the College of Liberal Arts and Cross-Disciplinary Studies and will interview him this week.
The allegation was raised by an anonymous female student who posted her experience on the school’s intranet.
“A few years ago, he called me out for a drink. He grabbed my hands and attempted to kiss me while his hands groped my body.”
She added that she couldn’t reject the invitation because he was her teacher and she ran away after the harassment. “At first, I thought everything would be ok as long as I kept things to myself but I began feeling sorry for other potential victims,” she wrote, explaining why she decided to share her experience.
The revelation came less than a day after the Ministry of Education’s announcement that it would look into Myongji College located in Seoul where four professors from the theater and visual arts department were recently dismissed over sexual harassment allegations.
The college said the four were fired earlier this month which led to the cancellation of classes at the beginning of the school year. The school also recently launched an independent fact-finding mission.
“We will not tolerate sexual crimes committed by teachers against students,” a ministry official said. Separately, the police said they also were monitoring developments before officially launching a criminal investigation.
The four are Park Joong-hyun, Lee Young-taek, Choi Young-min and Ahn Gwang-ok _ all except Ahn are full-time professors.
The allegations were raised last month on the school’s intranet where students poured out condemnation.
Regarding Prof. Park in particular, multiple students have accused him of asking them to apply anti-inflammatory cream on his naked upper body in his office and to massage him around his pubic area. He is also alleged to have habitually groped students.
On Sunday, Prof. Park released a letter of apology, saying: “I regret what I have done to these students causing enormous pain physically and psychologically. I would like to apologize to them.”
Park was one of the founding members of the theater department at Myongji College in 1998 and was head of the department.
Many were caught by surprise that four teachers were accused of sexual harassment at the same time.
The case is the latest development in the #MeToo movement which was triggered at the end of January by an incumbent female prosecutor Seo Ji-hyun who claimed she was groped by a senior colleague at a funeral eight years ago.
Her emotional testimony on live television forced the prosecution to create a special investigation team to look into all allegations of sexual harassment and the behavioral culture at prosecutors’ offices nationwide.
Following Seo, women of all ages in various occupations began speaking up about their experiences of sexual harassment and accusing offenders publicly.