What a Professor’s Firing Shows About Sexual Harassment in China
It seems it is no less true in China than here! The word “Karma,” “The Law of Cause & Effect,” and the meaning behind the popular expression, “What Goes Around Comes Around,” all of which mean the same thing, is alive and well in Beijing. Of course different cultures have different ways of dealing with such behavior, but eventually every action creates a reaction.
Moreover, it looks like the professor in this case has “made his bed,” and soon will have to lie in it! Yes Prof! “What Goes Around…does…Come Around!”
Find Rob’s book & ebook “What Goes Around Comes Around – A Guide To How Life REALLY Works” at Amazon or Audible
Kirkus Reviews says:
A stable, nonpreachy, objective voice makes the book stand apart from others in the genre. A successful guide that uses anecdotes of real human experiences to reveal powerful truths about life.
What a Professor’s Firing Shows About Sexual Harassment in China
A top Chinese university described the conduct of a professor accused of sexual harassment as a moral failing, language feminists say downplays harm to women.
In the video, the Chinese graduate student stared straight into the camera as she spoke. She wore a mask, but in a bold move, made clear who she was by holding up her identification card. Then she issued an explosive accusation: A prominent professor at a top Chinese university had been sexually harassing her for two years.
Shortly after the woman posted the video on her Chinese social media pages on Sunday, it drew millions of views and set off an online outcry against the professor she named, Wang Guiyuan, then the vice-dean and Communist Party head of Renmin University’s School of Liberal Arts in Beijing.
The next day, Renmin University fired Mr. Wang, saying that officials had investigated the student’s allegations and found that they were true.
The swift response by the university reflected the growing pressure that Chinese academic institutions have come under to curb sexual harassment on campus. In recent years, several schools have been accused of not doing enough to protect their students from tutors and professors who preyed on them.
At the same time, in denouncing the professor, the university and commentaries in state media that followed studiously avoided describing his conduct as sexual harassment. Instead, they depicted it as a moral failing, using language that feminist activists and scholars say points to a strategy of deflection that turns the attention away from victims.
“If they have to avoid saying ‘sexual harassment,’ it’s very hard to imagine that they take sexual violence seriously,” said Feng Yuan, an academic and the founder of an anti-domestic violence help line in Beijing.
In her video, the graduate student, who identified herself as Wang Di, said that Mr. Wang, her doctoral supervisor, had demanded in 2022 to have sex with her, then abused her physically and verbally after she refused.
“Because I rejected him, he retaliated over the past two years, threatening that I would not graduate,” she said in the hourlong video. She included audio clips of what she described as recordings of his attempts to force himself on her. She also said she had text messages that backed up her claims.
Renmin University responded by saying it had verified the student’s allegations and dismissed the professor, whom it identified only by his last name, Wang. In a statement, the school said the professor had “seriously breached the party discipline, school rules and the professional ethics of teachers.”
Mr. Wang, the professor, did not reply to an email seeking comment. Ms. Wang, the student, also did not respond to a request for comment.
The university also said he had been expelled by the Communist Party, and the local police department said it was investigating the situation. An online commentary about the case in the People’s Daily, a Communist Party mouthpiece, hailed the quick action, saying: “Black sheep cannot remain in the herd and the reputation of top schools cannot be destroyed.”
Feminist activists said that school administrators were often more concerned about protecting the reputation of the school than the rights of the victim. Schools in China have long encouraged students to keep quiet about such allegations. In this case, the activists said, administrators may have had little choice but to take action, given the evidence that the student had collected and the widespread scrutiny on the school.
The Chinese authorities have tried to avoid addressing the harm that had been done to the victim, said Lu Pin, a prominent Chinese feminist activist. “It is not a question of rights, it is not a question of safety, but a problem of violating morality and the politics of the party-state,” she said. This was to avoid being seen as encouraging students to seek legal redress, she said.
The avoidance of the term “sexual harassment” has been a feature in past cases as well. In 2023, Southwest University in Chongqing fired a professor after a doctoral student said he had pressured her into having sex with him. In the university’s announcement, it described the teacher as having had an “improper sexual relationship” with a student, a term that scholars like Ms. Feng say is problematic because it implicates the victim as well.
Even though sexual harassment by university teachers of students is officially described as a breach of professional ethics, the tendency within academia was to downplay the issue, said Lao Dongyan, a law professor from Tsinghua University, in a post on Weibo.
Yet “the environment around me seems to collectively assume it a trivial matter, or even an inevitable love affair for the men,” she wrote in the post, which has been liked nine million times.
That Ms. Wang had to resort to going public with her complaint at the cost of her privacy reflected how weak reporting mechanisms on campus can be, Ms. Lu said.
After the university’s response, Ms. Wang posted a statement online saying she was satisfied by the school’s response and appreciative of its concern for her well-being. Her original video was no longer available, though it was not immediately clear who took it down.
Tiffany May is a reporter based in Hong Kong, covering the politics, business and culture of the city and the broader region. More about Tiffany May
Zixu Wang is a Times reporter and researcher covering news in mainland China and Hong Kong. More about Zixu Wang
Kirkus Reviews, the gold-standard for independent & accurate reviews, has this to say about
What Goes Around Comes Around:
A successful guide that uses anecdotes to reveal powerful truths about life.
The stable, positive, non-preachy and objective voice makes the book stand apart from others in the genre.
~ Kirkus Reviews
“I’ve read a number of books that focus on sharing a similar message, including “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne, “The Answer” by John Assaraf & Murray Smith, “The Celestine Prophecy” by James Redfield, “Think and Grow Rich,” by Napoleon Hill, and I must say that I find Rob’s to be my favorite.” – Sheryl Woodhouse, founder of Livelihood Matters LLC
What a Professor’s Firing Shows About Sexual Harassment in China
What a Professor’s Firing Shows About Sexual Harassment in China
U.S. Coast Guard Academy, in New London, Connecticut between 1988 and 2006, including the revelation of leaders who discouraged disclosure. Those cases do not include at least 42 more that have been identified as not having been properly investigated. That is not to mention new Pentagon published statistics showing student-reported assaults at West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy.
So after all the accusations and denials, the truth is finally revealed about Bill Cosby’s lifetime of raping young women, who were unfortunate enough to cross his path. The answer as to how he got away with it for so long, lies in his skill of slipping a Methaquolone pill, otherwise known as a Quaalude, into a drink he would give them. It would render them helpless to escape his subsequent sexual assault. Of course, he had also built a persona of America’s Grandpa, that was the ultimate deception.I first heard about quaaludes (‘ludes) in college in the 60’s. Apparently, he did as well! The word was that if you could slip one into a girl’s drink, she would be more compliant than otherwise. The records show that Cosby had multiple prescriptions filled at least throughout the 70’s, then apparently, subsequently found other sources. It became his “MO” and many women his victim. But that game is over now, most likely for the duration of his life! As with most abusers, Cosby felt he had a way to evade the light from shining on what he was up to. He thought he was safe and would never get caught, but If accused, he could claim it was consensual. It is what all abusers think, regardless of the form that abuse takes, and sometimes it can work for a long while. But when the light finally does shine and reveals the truth, the rule is that the longer the perpetrator got away with their nasty deceptions, the deeper the hole they will have dug for themselves. Epstein escaped via suicide. I think they’ll be keeping a close eye on Bill!
