Dongguk Exposed: Academic Fraud, Fake Partnerships & Sexual Violence
How Fake Global Partnerships Fueled Real Fraud & Institutional Betrayal
A professor from Dongguk University's Media Communication Major commits sexual assault against a graduate student during a drinking meeting.
This incident marks the beginning of a pattern of sexual violence cases that would later be reported to the university.
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A professor from Dongguk University's Media Communication Major was prosecuted for sexually assaulting a graduate student during a drinking meeting.
The university's response showed concerning patterns: delayed action despite early awareness, taking disciplinary steps only after formal indictment, and a reactive rather than preventative approach to sexual violence.
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Dongguk University introduced a progressive provision allowing students who experienced verbal abuse or sexual violence to request a change of professor.
It is questionable whether this policy has ever been successfully invoked, or if it remains in effect as of 2025.
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- English
- 简体中文 (scroll to "一、2016年：教授更换政策")
- 繁體中文 (scroll to "一、2016年：教授更換政策")
- 日本語 (scroll to "1. 2016年：教授交代ポリシー")
- 한국어 (scroll to "1. 2016년: 교수 교체 정책")
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At the height of the MeToo movement, Dongguk University abolished the Female Student Council, an important advocacy group for women.
This decision called into question the university's commitment to providing support mechanisms for women.
Available in:
- English
- 简体中文 (scroll to "二、2018年：MeToo运动与女性学生会被解散")
- 繁體中文 (scroll to "二、2018年：MeToo 運動與女性學生會解散")
- 日本語 (scroll to "2. 2018年：MeToo運動と女性学生会の廃止")
- 한국어 (scroll to "2. 2018년: MeToo 운동과 여학생회 폐지")
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The Korean Women's Development Institute released a comprehensive report on sexual violence in arts education programs after the MeToo movement.
This report highlighted systemic issues in Korean arts universities, including Dongguk University.
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Tcha Seung-jai (차승재), co-founder of Sidus FNH, was indicted in June 2015 while a Dongguk professor and convicted of bid-rigging public education funds in 2017. Rather than dismissing him, Dongguk promoted him to Research Institute Director in 2020, then installed him as the 11th Dean of the Graduate School of Digital Image & Contents in March 2023 — six years after his criminal conviction.
The appointment was confirmed by Yonhap News Agency (Korea's official state wire service) and is permanently recorded on Dongguk's own institutional history page at dic.dongguk.edu.
Read the full report:
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Initial emails regarding sexual violence concerns were sent to Dongguk University, with no response.
This marks the beginning of a pattern of institutional silence on these issues.
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Follow-up emails included all faculty members of Dongguk University's Digital Contents & Media Graduate School.
There were no responses whatsoever, showing a collective institutional silence.
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The Gender Watchdog blog published evidence that Dongguk University falsely claims partnerships with universities that have officially denied any relationship. These false partnership claims may constitute taxpayer fraud, as Korean universities receive government funding based partly on their international relationships.
The blog also documents how these misrepresentations coincide with a decade-long pattern of sexual violence incidents and institutional neglect of safety concerns.
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Escalation emails mentioning Title IX risks were sent to Dongguk University.
Dongguk University responded dismissively with "For what purpose did you send the e-mail? Is it a suggestion or a report?"
This response demonstrates the institution's failure to meaningfully engage with serious safety concerns.
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Multiple universities listed as partners by Dongguk begin responding to inquiries, with some denying partnership relationships.
One Canadian institution stated, "We do not have a student exchange agreement with Dongguk University."
A global university ranking organization has forwarded concerns to management for review.
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Dongguk University refuses to engage since April 5-6 emails.
This ongoing silence reinforces concerns about institutional commitment to addressing sexual violence risks.
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Gender Watchdog publishes conclusive evidence that Dongguk University continues to falsely claim partnerships with universities that have officially denied any relationship. This raises serious questions about potential taxpayer fraud, as Korean universities receive substantial government funding based on their reported international partnerships.
The investigation reveals that despite being aware of these false claims, Dongguk has refused to correct their public records for over 25 days. Meanwhile, more universities are reconsidering their relationships with Dongguk due to sexual violence concerns.
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25 days of complete silence from seven Korean government agencies after receiving official evidence that Dongguk University appears to be falsely claiming international partnerships - potentially to secure public funding.
This governmental inaction on financial misrepresentation directly reinforces structural conditions that enable sexual violence in higher education. The blog documents how the same institutional failures that allow financial fraud also create an environment where sexual violence can flourish unchecked.
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After government and university inaction for 34+ days, our investigation expands to systemic sexual violence issues across Korean higher education institutions.
Findings reveal compromised IEQAS certification, with institutions maintaining programs with documented sexual violence risks and falsifying partnerships for funding.
Investigation now examines:
- Partnership claims across universities
- All-male faculty in film departments
- Structural factors enabling sexual violence
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A Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) post on Dongguk's sexual violence crisis goes viral with 3,256 views and 85 comments. Multiple victim testimonies emerge: inappropriate interview questions from a Dongguk professor, recent sexual harassment of an international film student, and a theatre student's self-censored comment revealing fear of retaliation.
A 78-recipient pressure matrix is simultaneously activated — Korean prosecutors, 25 foreign embassies, the US Department of Education OCR, and global advocacy networks all receive the viral evidence.
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Sidus Corporation, represented by Law Firm Shinwon, sends an official legal threat demanding retraction of Gender Watchdog's documentation of the Dongguk–Sidus corporate partnership and campus exploitation nexus. The letter claims Sidus left Dongguk over 15 years prior.
This is directly contradicted by Dongguk University's own official website (archived April 8, 2025), which states the film department building "houses Sidus FNH, one of the top five film production companies in Korea." Bar association complaints are filed to bar associations across Korea, Asia, and internationally.
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The day after posting evidence of systematic sexual violence against LGBT individuals in the Korean military across 20+ DC Inside university galleries, every single post was simultaneously deleted within 12–15 hours. All showed zero views and identical error messages — consistent with coordinated institutional censorship, not routine moderation.
DC Inside's own response confirmed the LGBT military keywords were not on their automated management list, indicating the deletions were driven by external pressure rather than platform policy.
The purge occurred exactly when cross-ideological coalition-building around defamation law reform was gaining momentum — uniting feminists and anti-feminists under a shared platform that threatened institutional corruption.
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Automated Visual Ping monitoring catches Dongguk silently updating Professor Lee Jung-hyun's (이정현) profile: her office is upgraded and her research scope expanded from "film theory criticism" to the broader "film studies." The changes are not announced.
Despite the enhanced profile, she remains a temporary 연구초빙교수 (Research Visiting Professor) with no tenure security or decision-making authority — and remains invisible on Dongguk's English-language website. The "Loyal Insider" tokenism strategy: enhanced titles without redistributed power.
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Tcha Seung-jai (차승재) — indicted 2015, convicted of bid-rigging 2017, promoted to Research Institute Director 2020, installed as 11th Dean 2023 — is quietly removed from the Korean-language DIC faculty page. His absence is confirmed by September 23, 2025.
He remains listed on Dongguk's English-language faculty page as "Sung-Jai Tcha" with only a Bachelor's degree in French Education. He also continues to appear at the 1:28 mark of the Graduate School's official promotional video. This "one foot in, one foot out" dual-audience strategy hides the controversial figure from domestic scrutiny while maintaining his image internationally.
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A new sexual violence scandal at Dongguk University involving 'Professor F' exposes a 4-month institutional silence and failure of the Human Rights Center, mirroring the university's pattern of delay in addressing partnership fraud.
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The BC Information & Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) had to intervene after UBC failed to produce any records of communication with Dongguk for an entire academic year. The FOI office has confirmed no active institutional agreement exists.
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Our latest investigation into Dongguk's European partners has revealed a third confirmed case of misrepresentation. Southampton does not list Dongguk on their official global partnership map. Our inquiry to their International Office was forwarded to their FOI team, who confirmed no agreement exists.
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A comprehensive audit of Dongguk's "Global Partners" page reveals 34 institutions that deny or severely restrict claimed partnerships. Four systematic fraud patterns are named: the MOU Trap (non-binding letters listed as full partnerships), Zombie Partnerships (expired agreements still listed), the Departmental Switch (a single-faculty agreement inflated to university-wide), and outright fabrication.
The Oceania region shows an 85% failure rate (5 of 7 partners). Confirmed rejections span UCLA, UCSD, University of Manchester, Leiden, Ghent, Freie Universität Berlin, and more. Beijing Institute of Technology confirms only an MOU — no student exchange.
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Days after the BC Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner intervened in the UBC Freedom of Information request, Dongguk silently removes UBC from its official Global Partners page. Simultaneously, "Toronto Metropolitan University" is reverted to the long-obsolete name "Ryerson University" — a name retired in April 2022.
The dead-name reversion reveals that Dongguk's partnership lists were copied from expired databases, not maintained from live agreements. Both changes are caught in real time by Visual Ping monitoring. No correction or apology is issued. The University of Manitoba is confirmed via public database as an MOU only — no student exchange.
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Beginning at 10:15 PM on January 26, 2026, Professor S — a Dongguk University Japanese Studies faculty member — allegedly committed non-consensual indecent assault against a Korean woman in her 20s at a lodging facility in Okayama City, Japan. He was arrested by Japanese police on January 28.
In February 2026, the Okayama District Prosecutors Office issued a non-prosecution disposition. Dongguk's stated position: "Japanese police do not notify Korean universities the way Korean police do. We learned through media on March 24." Professor S returns to campus and continues teaching all three of his courses through the semester.
A non-prosecution disposition is not a finding of innocence. The 2023 revision of Japan's sexual violence law centers on lack of consent — a standard South Korea's penal code still does not recognise as the core legal test for rape.
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Dongguk publishes a Gender Equality Plan (GEP) signed by President Yoon Jae-woong — the only GEP among all 12 Korean institutions at Korea's Horizon Europe biotechnology researchers forum. The GEP Task Force was formed in December 2025, the same month the 34 fake-partners exposé went international.
The document fails on four grounds: no remedy for existing documented cases, reactive formation timing, no independent oversight or student participation, and no sex-disaggregated data for arts departments — precisely where the KWDI 2020 report identifies an 81/100 structural sexual violence risk score. Chung-Ang University, holding Korea's NCP role for Horizon Europe, has produced no GEP at all.
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On March 23, the Japanese Studies student association published a 대자보 (open campus letter) documenting a sustained pattern of sexual violence by Professor S: voyeuristic surveillance of students' social media body photos, non-consensual kissing of students' hands, explicit sexual comments, coerced attendance at evening drinking sessions, and the explicit linkage of student compliance to grades — "If you're useful to me, don't worry about your grades."
Students said: "It was the reporting of the Japan arrest in the media that gave us the courage to bring this forward again." Under South Korea's criminal defamation law, stating a true fact that damages someone's reputation is itself a crime — the foreign arrest record provided the indisputable public-interest shield required to speak.
On March 24, Korean national media breaks the Japan arrest story — the same day as the EU-Korea Research and Innovation Day in Seoul. Dongguk's response: "The case is serious. We are verifying the facts." Professor S is still teaching all three courses. The Human Rights Center accepts the complaint on March 26; lectures continue through the week.
Five weeks earlier — on March 18 — Dongguk's president had signed a Gender Equality Plan. The GEP contains no survivor reporting mechanism and no metric that would have caught any of this.
Read the full report:
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Eight days after the EU-Korea Research and Innovation Day at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul, Visual Ping catches simultaneous changes to the DIC faculty roster. Two female research visiting professors are removed: 이정현 — the sole holder of the BK21 government research funding credential — and 최은진. A practitioner (박매화) is added, leaving two faculty members sharing identical credentials, specialties, and research areas.
Simultaneously, all institutional contact information (phone, office, email) is stripped from a senior film directing professor's profile, leaving only a personal Naver email. The tenured and tenure-track tier remains 100% male in both pre- and post-change snapshots. The RTD internal GEP compliance review, confirmed by EU Delegation Counsellor Rainer Wessely five days before the summit, was already running when the changes were made.
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Support & Endorsements
We are honored to receive support from End Rape On Campus (EndRapeOnCampus) in exposing the systemic sexual violence cover-up at Dongguk University. Thank you EROC for amplifying our efforts, providing solidarity, and advising on advocacy as we expand our campaign to other Korean… pic.twitter.com/EKuc8tdrFZ
— Gender Watchdog (@Gender_Watchdog) May 21, 2025
Independent Operation: This site is maintained independently. Past support from organizations (e.g., EROC) does not imply current operational oversight or liability.
Links & Resources
- #MeTooKorea2025 Timeline Website – Systemic sexual violence, cover-ups, and Title IX risks across Korean universities and the film industry (K-Arts, Chung-Ang, Hongik, Sidus FNH, Netflix, and more)
- Gender Watchdog Blog – Documentation of Dongguk University's sexual violence crisis, public funds misuse, and institutional betrayal
- #MeTooKorea2025 Dashboard – Monitoring post views on dcinside.com by university
- X.com (Twitter): @Gender_Watchdog
- YouTube: Gender Watchdog Channel