SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean court ordered a university professor on Wednesday to pay 10 million won, or $8,262, to each of nine women who had filed suit claiming that the scholar had defamed them in her book about Japan’s World War II-era military brothels.

Since Park Yu-ha, a professor of Japanese literature at Sejong University in Seoul, published “Comfort Women of the Empire” in 2013, she has faced a series of civil and criminal complaints from the nine South Korean women, who say they were forced to serve at the brothels during the war.

In ruling on a civil lawsuit on Wednesday, the Eastern District Court in Seoul said that Ms. Park must pay reparations because she had defamed the women with “false,” “exaggerated” or “distorted” content in her book.

Ms. Park said she would appeal.

Many intellectuals in South Korea and Japan have condemned the legal maneuvers against Ms. Park as violations of freedom of scholarship. They have also warned that her troubles illustrate how dangerous it could be to challenge conventional wisdom in South Korea about historically delicate issues.