A series of controversies over comments such as “Pull out the peppers”
The director uses his official vehicle for personal use on weekends.
“Moral corruption must be corrected”
The moral laxity of high-ranking officials at the Korean Academy of Science and Technology has been continuously occurring. The Korean Academy of Science and Technology is an organization of leading scholars in the Korean science and technology community and is operated with government budget support.
According to the office of Rep. Lee Hae-min of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, on the 12th, Lee Chang-hee, the executive vice president of the Academy of Science and Technology, was found to have sexually harassed and made sexist remarks and verbally abused employees from March 2022, during his term, until recently.
According to a petition submitted to the Ministry of Employment and Labor by employees of the Academy of Science and Technology, the vice president put his hand close to the private parts of a male employee, Mr. A, and made sexually harassing remarks, such as, “Keep moving ○○ like this. It makes me feel bad when I keep doing this. Never follow them.” It is known that this was made in the context of telling the Academy of Science and Technology not to be swayed by the Ministry of Science and ICT regarding a project being carried out.
In addition, he made remarks to female employee B, who had nothing to do with human resources, saying, “Pick the pepper, pepper,” meaning to hire a man, and made sexist remarks during a meal with other employees, saying, “Only men (cooks) work and women (cashiers) don’t work. Men do all the hard work.” In response, Vice President Lee admitted to making sexist remarks, although he denied any recollection of the incident involving A. Vice President Lee stated, “There is a team that needs male employees who can exert strength, such as moving desks. I did not mean to discriminate against female employees, but if they took it that way,[I]was wrong.”
In addition, suspicions have been raised that the Korean Academy of Science and Technology has used government budget for purposes other than its business purposes. The ‘Scholars, Career Decisions’ project that the Korean Academy of Science and Technology has been in charge of since last year is part of the science and technology policy research and consulting project, but in reality, it is being used to present research achievements and award membership plaques to new members. The office of this member stated that although the announcement allowance is set at 300,000-400,000 won according to the internal regulations of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology, 1 million won was paid for reasons such as pre-meetings and non-face-to-face consulting.
It was also confirmed that the president of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology, Yoo Wook-joon, had used an official vehicle that was supposed to be used for official purposes dozens of times outside of work hours, such as on weekends, public holidays, and Chuseok, since taking office in 2022. The Korean Academy of Science and Technology stated, “We acknowledge the facts.”
A leading figure in the science and technology community pointed out, “Since the Academy of Science and Technology, which should be operated on membership fees, is carrying out unnecessary government projects and receiving budgets, problems such as private misappropriation are occurring,” and “The moral erosion of the entire science and technology community must also be corrected.” The Academy of Science and Technology is a non-profit organization established to promote basic research, and both the president and vice president are professors. It is classified as an organization related to the Ministry of Science and ICT, and receives 6.9 billion won of its annual budget of 8.6 billion won from the government.
The Ministry of Science and ICT announced that it will review the overall operation of the Academy of Science and Technology through the department in charge and identify areas for improvement and transparently disclose the results.
Reporter Choi Ji-won [email protected]
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2024-09-13 05:19:44