Ban professors dating students

ON THURSDAY NIGHT, Beihang University in Beijing dismissed one of its professors, after investigating claims by four female graduates that he sexually harassed them when they were in college. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

According to the university, Chen Xiaowu not only lost his professorship but his teaching qualifications as well. He was also removed from his position as deputy head of the university's undergraduate school.

On the university's official micro blog account, there have already been more than 16,000 likes and 4,000 comments, the vast majority of which support the university's actions.

However, some have also asked why the university made the scandal public.
It is surprising such a question still exists in 2018. Living in the age of the internet, no one should dream of hiding the truth of such a scandal forever. If any part is hidden, there will always be accusations of trying to bend the law for power.

Beihang University acted quickly in response to the allegations and has been very brave in making the whole thing public. The next step, as its announcement mentioned is to further improve the university regulations so as to prevent similar incidents from happening again.

For example, in many top global universities, there are strict rules prohibiting a professor from dating a student, because the former has power over the latter and any relationship is fundamentally unequal. In domestic universities such things are not encouraged, but most universities have not introduced a strict ban. That's partly why Chen had the chance to sexually harass these students.

Maybe Beihang University and other institutions of higher education could learn from the example from their foreign counterparts and introduce such bans. Only with proper and strict regulations can such scandals be prevented in the future.