Mocking ex-president's death in class: How did it get this bad?

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Park, a Gyeonggi Province teacher who asked to be identified only by his surname, has taught middle and high school students for six years. During that time, hate speech has become a regular part of his classroom, including remarks about the 2009 death of liberal former President Roh Moo-hyun.

“Students often use expressions related to Roh's death in class and some even write such content in their assignments,” Park told The Korea Times. “These kids weren't even born during Roh's time, meaning they don't know much about his policies or failures.”

Cases like Park's reflect a broader pattern emerging in Korean classrooms, where hate speech rooted in far-right rhetoric has crept into everyday student language, alarming teachers who say they are increasingly at a loss for how to respond.

A survey by the Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union, released Tuesday, found that 89.3 percent of 1,109 elementary, middle and high school teachers nationwide had witnessed or heard about students using hate speech, discrimination, historical distortion or anti-democratic expressions in their remarks, assignments or presentations over the past year.

The most commonly encountered expressions mocked the deaths or tragedies of politicians or historical figures, cited by 88.9 percent of teachers, with 58.2 percent saying they heard such remarks repeatedly and often.

Teachers pointed to online hate content and community culture as the leading external factor at 94 percent, followed by hateful and mocking language from politicians and the media at 74.4 percent.

Members of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union hold a press conference announcing the results of a survey on teacher and youth awareness of hate speech in Seodaemun District, Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap

The trend was also reflected in how teachers viewed last month's Paichai High School baseball team chant, widely condemned as a direct reference denigrating a pro-democracy movement. Most teachers, 88.4 percent, said the incident showed the broader spread of online hate culture rather than the actions of individual students.

Park said students often learn the terms from Ilbe, short for Ilgan Best Storage, a controversial online forum known for misogynistic and derogatory content, or from their close friends, and using them as a joke.

“It's not just troubled students. Even ordinary students laugh along or go along with it when more aggressive students use such expressions,” Park said, adding that teachers themselves are now being mocked.

Park Dae-hoon, another teacher with more than 30 years of experience, tells a similar story.

“When teachers try to discipline students about hate speech, other students laugh along and join in, say they're just playing around and not to take it so seriously or ask if the teacher is a leftist,” Park said.

He added that many students learn hate speech through memes and clips on platforms like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.

“Only a few genuinely hold far-right views. Most are driven by a sense of superiority from being the first to encounter such content and spread it among peers,” Park said.

The teacher also said it is notable that most of the hate speech in Korean classrooms target victims of domestic tragedies or historical figures, while many other countries tend to direct such hatred at other ethnic groups or nations.

Experts say this domestic focus reflects both Korea's demographic makeup and a broader tendency to scapegoat the vulnerable when no visible outside target exists.

Kim Yun-tae, a sociology professor at Korea University, said the country's relatively homogeneous population and its online media landscape both play a role.

“Korea has a comparatively small foreign population compared to Europe or the United States, meaning there are fewer minorities from abroad who could become targets of hate speech,” Kim said.

Far-right YouTubers and communities like Ilbe are the main source of hateful content, Kim said, adding that memes attacking progressives have spread to YouTube, often consumed by students as jokes without knowing the political context to understand them.

Kim added that online hate also extends to other marginalized groups, including Chinese people, ethnic Koreans from China, people with disabilities and women.

Seol Dong-hoon, a sociology professor at Jeonbuk National University, offered a broader framework, noting when people mock or hate, they typically target those defined as outside one's own group — often immigrants or a different ethnicity.

“But when no such visible other exists, people create victims from within the group, scapegoating other minorities and the vulnerable,” Seol said.

Seol added that the hate speech now common in classrooms follows the same pattern, targeting people who pose no real threat, and hate at its core is an unconditional rejection of the vulnerable.

The professor pointed to medieval Europe's witch hunts as an example, where the women targeted belonged to the same group as their persecutors but were simply old or sick, accused of contaminating society despite having no real power to do so.

“A culture of hate can target anyone. Without an outside other, people look within their own group, finding someone else if none exists. Seeking out minorities is the essence of hate,” Seol said.