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    Chinese Students Respond to USC Sexual Harassment Exposé

    Colleagues at university clinic accused gynecologist of targeting Chinese women.

    The Chinese students’ association at the University of Southern California has released a statement in the wake of an exposé about a school gynecologist, George Tyndall, urging students to speak up on sexual harassment.

    According to a Los Angeles Times investigative report earlier this week, Tyndall was suspended in 2016 after an internal investigation found that his irregular conduct constituted sexual harassment — but the university allowed him to resign without reporting him to the medical board or informing his patients.

    Tyndall’s colleagues told the LA Times that they feared he had been “targeting the university’s growing population of Chinese students, who often had a limited understanding of the English language and American medical norms.”

    Almost 5,000 Chinese graduate and undergraduate students were enrolled at USC in 2017. In addition to sexually inappropriate conduct, Tyndall had also made racially discriminatory remarks. A follow-up report from LA Times on Thursday said that the Chinese Consulate-General in Los Angeles had urged the university to conduct an immediate investigation.

    The statement from the USC Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) urged students to report harassment: “When facing violations, when facing injustice, we must dare to speak up. If you encounter something detrimental to your rights and interests … don’t remain silent.”

    The association’s president, Derek Hong, told Sixth Tone that in the coming semester, the group would also organize a talk on female students’ safety and rights, cohosted with the university’s campus security department.

    The CSSA statement also included tips for what students should expect in medical consultations: The doctor must advise the patient of every procedure to be performed; the patient has the right to ask the purpose of each procedure, and to ask the doctor to stop at any time; and female patients are entitled to ask a female nurse or chaperone to attend checkups with male doctors.

    Sun Han, a managing partner at Voyage Education, a consultancy that helps Chinese students apply to schools in the U.S., told Sixth Tone that the company’s advice to prospective international students does not include information on sexual harassment unless the student specifically asks.

    “Though I personally care very much about sexual harassment education, our work doesn’t directly relate to this, and there’s a lack of expertise,” Sun explained.

    On Thursday, the USC news story spread across Chinese media and sparked heated discussion. “It’s crucial to give children sex education from an early stage,” one Weibo user commented. “At the very least, there should be detailed sex education in high schools and universities, that must include how to say no, and what to do if you are harassed,” another added.

    Editor: Qian Jinghua.

    (Header image: The entrance to the Engemann Student Health Center on the University of Southern California campus in Los Angeles, May 17, 2018. Robyn Beck/VCG)