Professor accused of trying to cover up sexual assault on Fu Jen’s campus

By Yeh Kuan-yu and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer





A Fu Jen Catholic University dean has been accused of trying to cover up a sexual assault that took place on campus last year and making offensive comments to the alleged victim during an inquiry, a university student surnamed Chu (朱) said on Sunday.

Chu made the allegation against College of Social Sciences dean Hsia Lin-ching (夏林清), a professor of psychology and a well-known feminist, in an 8,000-character Facebook post.

However, Hsia on Wednesday replied on Facebook that Chu’s narrative and quotes attributed to her “differed substantially from [her] recollections of the incident,” and denied that a faculty group was set up to paper over the incident.

“University gender equality committees have been working for many years and teachers on the front lines could easily think that the matters should be handed to the gender equality commission and the legal system, and abdicate their responsibility as educators to help students grow and learn with them,” she wrote.

Chu said that his girlfriend — a psychology student surnamed Wu (巫) — was raped by another student in the department, surnamed Wang (王), following an on-campus event where alcohol was served.

Chu said that he had become concerned about Wu’s safety after his telephone calls to her went unanswered, and that going to the party, he found Wang assaulting Wu and called the police.

Chu said that Wang was indicted in January for rape in January following DNA tests.

Chu said that right after the incident, Hsia repeatedly pressured Wu not to file a police report and not to make a formal complaint to Fu Jen’s gender equality committee.

He quoted the dean as saying: “I want to know what you have experienced as a woman; do not play the victim,” and: “This incident might be the straw that breaks this department’s back.”

Hsia later tried to push the faculty working group investigating the incident to conclude that the alleged crime was a case of intoxicated consensual sex, and stalked students who posted Facebook comments supporting Wu, sending them e-mails and ordering their teachers to talk to them, Chu said.

Wu eventually decided to file a complaint with the gender equality committee, which ordered Wang expelled.

The department has refused to comment on the incident, saying it wanted to avoid interfering with an ongoing legal case and citing concerns for the victim’s privacy.

A student and faculty forum is to be convened on Tuesday to discuss the handling of incident.