Campus misconduct coverups compound offense

More often than not schools tend to deny or downplay sexual misconduct cases on campus, especially when teaching staff are involved. Yet handling such cases seriously and decisively would not tarnish a schools’ reputation, instead it would enhance it, as proven by the praise Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University has received recently.

A female student at the university revealed the sexual misconduct of one of her teachers on social media on Oct 19. Two days later, the University’s Communist Youth League not only confirmed the case on its official micro blog, but also announced the university was dismissing the teacher from his post. The rapid and decisive response to the student’s complaint by the university authorities have won it much public approval.

Over the years, a number of sexual harassment and sexual assault cases on campuses have been exposed, sounding alarms about the extent of the problem. Unfortunately some schools and colleges have been reluctant to deal with these offenses, and they have failed to act with due attention and swiftness, causing repeated psychological harm to the victims.

Besides, the slow response of the school authorities means evidence is often lost and offenders are not held to account. That the student at Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University bravely revealed what had happened has helped the university authorities to investigate and take appropriate action. Often victims opt for silence in these cases due to various factors including shame, psychological barriers or fear of the consequences.

The reality is connivance will only feed the offenders’ arrogance and encourage them in their crimes or misbehavior while aggravating the trauma of victims. However, some colleges have tried to gloss over such incidents or even proposed private settlements out of concern for their reputations. But covering things up does more harm than good.

In this sense Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University has set a good example. It shows that handling sexual harassment cases with decisiveness and seriousness is not such a difficult thing to do, neither does it bring disgrace, quite the opposite.

Yet thanks to a lack of enforcement authority colleges can only hold the offenders accountable to party discipline and school regulations. And the jury is still out on how to punish offenders for sexual misconduct such as groping or verbal harassment.

The bottom line is teachers should not seek relations with students or sexually harass them in any way. In its Opinion on Establishing a Long-term Mechanism to Improve College Teachers’ Morality, the Ministry of Education said that teachers should not develop improper relations with students. However, the definition of improper relations needs to be clarified with the provisions to be enforced.

There is indeed a lot we could and should do to remove the threats of sexual harassment from campus and prevent the mishap from happening once and again, and concerted efforts from educational administrative departments at various levels are needed.

The author is a writer at China Youth Daily.