Firing of Chinese professor renews sexual misconduct concerns

A sexual harassment case at a Chinese institution has highlighted the growing pressure the country’s university leaders are under to tackle such incidents.

Beijing’s Renmin University of China fired a professor earlier this month after a graduate student claimed he had harassed her, according to the Associated Press.

Posting on Weibo, Wang Di accused Wang Guiyuan, vice-dean of the School of Liberal Arts and her doctoral adviser, of continuously treating her unfairly over the past two years after she rejected his advances, including threatening to prevent her from graduating. 

After the post went viral, the university told media that it had concluded the accusations were true and had fired the professor and reported him to authorities. Police are now investigating the case against the professor, who has not responded to requests for comment.

This is not the first time Chinese universities have faced public scrutiny for their treatment of sexual misconduct incidents involving teachers. In 2018, as the #MeToo movement gained momentum in China despite widespread censorship, a number of sexual harassment cases at universities were thrust into the spotlight, including one where an alleged rape victim killed herself. 

In particular, inappropriate relationships between students and supervisors became a topic of widespread discussion.

Xin Xu, a lecturer in the University of Oxford’s department of education, believes that although such problems are not unique to China, they can be exacerbated in an environment where “within the Chinese culture, there are…cultural norms to respect the teachers and respect your supervisors”. 

This can prevent victims from speaking out, she said, particularly because they could face threats as the student allegedly did in this case. “[Supervisors] control lots of resources and have a lot of power, and it’s really difficult and risky for their advisees to report,” she said. 

“Supervisors have a lot of power over whether the advisee will be able to graduate or proceed with academia, but some people are still not aware of how they should not be using or exploiting such relationships with their advisees and particularly between the male supervisor and female advisee.”

In recent years, the Chinese government has taken action to punish such misconduct, including introducing a national database in April 2023 to record such offences and prevent perpetrators resuming teaching or supervising duties. 

Ran Zhang, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at Peking University, believed that Chinese universities and colleges “are more prepared for complaints about teacher-to-student sexual harassment than 10 years ago”. 

“They take it seriously,” she said. However, she also pointed out that “few institutions have a separate system for sexual harassment complaints and support”. 

Dr Xu agreed it was positive that the university had taken action, but added: “It’s disheartening to see that that person needed to tolerate this thing for two years before [sharing] it on social media online to the public to seek a resolution.”

In general, the fact that Chinese people are becoming more aware of these issues as they become more public, particularly following the #MeToo movement, means that universities “will not ignore and cannot ignore” them, Dr Xu said. 

This awareness has been driven partly by social media. “It’s important because people can make use of this space when they really need it, but it’s still risky,” said Dr Xu. “It’s still not an ideal solution to have to publicise everything on the internet to seek support.”

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com