Shanghai Jiaotong University vice-dean removed from post over sexual harassment accusations

School staff were told that the vice-dean had been stripped of his title for ‘inappropriate’ remarks and actions toward students

Yet another university professor has been taken down by China’s fledgling #MeToo movement, this time at Shanghai Jiaotong University.

On Wednesday evening, assistant professor Wei Wuhui published an online account of an emergency internal meeting that was called for the university’s School of Media & Design staff at which it was announced that Xie Yungeng (谢耘耕) had been stripped of his title of vice-dean following troubling accusations from at least five different women.

Wei later told the Associated Press that while the exact words “sexual harassment” had not actually been used at the meeting, they were told that Wei had been dismissed from his posts due to “inappropriate remarks and inappropriate actions toward female students.”

Despite Wei’s account of the meeting already going viral on Chinese social media, Shanghai Jiaotong University has still yet to release an official statement regarding the situation with Xie.

Wei said that an investigation was launched earlier this month into the professor after one female doctoral student stepped forward. He added that while the investigation was still in its preliminary stages, the result already appears clear.

After being officially stripped of his vice-dean title, it’s not clear if Xie will face any additional punishment for his alleged behavior.

While many have argued that the #MeToo movement has very little chance of really taking off in China, it does at least appear to be having some affect in Chinese academia. Xie becomes just the latest in a string of formerly powerful academics and officials to lose their jobs following allegations of inappropriate behavior from their female students.

The most infamous case at the moment involves a former Peking University professor named Shen Yang who was accused in a viral post earlier this month of sexually harassing and raping one his students more than two decades ago, leading to the 21-year-old woman’s suicide in 1998.

After these accusations gained national attention, a current Peking University student named Yue Xin (岳昕) demanded increased transparency from the school, calling on administrators to make public all documents relating to the case.

For her efforts, Yue says that university officials at one of China’s most prestigious institutions have attempted to silence her through harassment and intimidation.

Yue claims that in lengthy meetings that lasted late into the night, school officials implied that she would not be able to graduate if she continued to pursue the matter. She also alleges that they even went so far as to barge into her dorm room at 1 am in the morning, forcing her to delete documents from her computer relating to a petition that called for the university to release all the information they had concerning Shen Yang’s conduct.

After that petition was released, Yue says that she was barred from campus and had to be driven back home by her mother, sparking considerable outrage from many of her fellow students. Two days later, Yue posted a short note, thanking her friends for their support and announcing that she had returned back to school.