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.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to