SINGAPORE, Nov 17 — A former professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) who was accused of sexual harassment had acted “inappropriately in a professional setting” by hugging a colleague without her consent, a two-month inquiry by the university has found.
NUS said that Professor Zheng Yongnian’s conduct during the incident on May 30, 2018 breached the varsity’s code of conduct for employees. Had he remained a staff member, he would have received a written warning.
Zheng, who headed NUS’ East Asian Institute (EAI) from 2008 to 2019, left the university in September 2020.
“As Prof Zheng is no longer a staff of NUS, the university will instead place on its staff records the outcome of the internal review,” the university said in an update today.
The case was first made public in August by the EAI staff member, who identified herself only as Charlotte, on Twitter.
Among other things, she said that Zheng had sexually harassed her in May 2018 and she reported the incident to the police in May 2019.
She also claimed that she had suffered “bullying and retaliations” from the EAI and NUS’ management for accusing Zheng of sexual harassment.
Zheng, a political scientist, had resigned from NUS and is now director of the Advanced Institute of Global and Contemporary China at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shenzhen, China.
Setting out a timeline of the events that transpired, NUS said it became aware of the sexual harassment allegations in May 2019.
It suspended Zheng from his duties on May 20, 2019. He was required to work from home and stay off-campus for the duration of investigations by the university and police.
He was also issued a “no-contact order”, which prevented him from contacting the staff member who filed the complaint as well as other employees, students, suppliers or customers of NUS without its consent.
In April 2020, the police, in consultation with the Attorney-General’s Chambers, issued a stern warning to Zheng over the incident. Three months later, in July, NUS appointed a committee of inquiry to look into the complaint.
The committee, which submitted its report to NUS in September, found that Zheng had given the staff member a hug without her consent at a work meeting on May 30, 2018.
But owing to the absence of evidence, it was unable to establish the veracity of the staff member’s allegation that, at the same meeting, Zheng had patted her buttocks.
Zheng had admitted hugging the staff member in his room after the meeting, but denied patting or touching her buttocks, NUS said in its statement.
The staff member had also alleged that in an earlier incident on May 9, 2018, Zheng had put his hands on her shoulder and head.She also claimed that in another incident in October 2018, he held onto her back while taking a group photo.
The NUS review, however, could not establish the veracity of these claims because of a lack of evidence. The committee of inquiry concluded that Zheng had hugged the EAI staff member and that it was “inappropriate for a male senior colleague in a supervisory role to hug a female junior colleague without her consent at a professional meeting in his office”.
TODAY has contacted Zheng for comment. — TODAY
