Beijing professor dismissed over sexual misconduct allegations, stripped of academic honors

#MeToo in China?

The #MeToo movement has scored another victory in China with a Beijing university professor being removed from his post after being accused of sexual misconduct by a former student.

On January 1st, Luo Xixi, a former doctoral student at Beihang University came forward on Weibo with serious allegations against her former professor, Chen Xiaowu (陈小武), tagging her post #MeToo.

Luo wrote that when she was his student 12 years ago, Chen had sexually harassed her and at least five other female students, writing that he had taken her to his sister’s home and tried to get her to have sex with him. After she refused, Chen claimed that he was only testing her to see if she was a student with “good morals.”

Chen denied these claims, causing Luo to publish a second post which included voice recordings and screenshots as evidence. Luo now lives in the US, and said that the #MeToo movement there had inspired her to speak out being harassed by her professor.

Following an investigation, the university confirmed the sexual misconduct allegations against Chen and removed him from his teaching position on Thursday.

In addition, China’s Ministry of Education has stripped Chen of the prestigious Changjiang Scholar award, the highest national academic honor in the country, awarded to no more than 500 scholars.

While many have argued that the #MeToo movement has very little chance of really taking off in China, it does seem to at least be having some effect in Chinese academia. Last month, a pair of deans at Nanchang University in Jiangxi province were dismissed from their posts following accusations, also published on Weibo, that one of the professors tried to cover-up his colleague’s serial sexual abuse of female students.