MASERU- YET another sex scandal has hit the National University of Lesotho (NUL).
This time a professor is accused of groping and fondling students.
The allegations against the Professor ** (whose name we have withheld because we could not get hold of him to give his side of the story) are contained in an explosive memorandum the Students Representative Council (SRC) has written to the Vice-Chancellor.
The SRC is demanding that the Professor be fired by January 8.
The council says it has received complaints from several female students who allege that the professor sexually harassed them.
It claims the student alleged that the Professor calls them to his office “where he will make suggestive, lecherous and sexually implicit commentary about their bodies (in particular their bottom area).”
The council says the students claimed that the professor would “grope and tap them slightly in a randy manner” without any remorse.
“Moreover, this morally decrepit behaviour he does publicly in class where he tells the female students to go in front of the class either at the board or to close the door and as they pass by he taps them at the lower bottom area and makes lecherous sounds such as ‘hmmmm nice butt’ and the like,” the SRC says.
“It is this kind of egotism that prompts the lecturers to act in this morally decrepit, pernicious and insidious manner and through making an example of **, we will eviscerate this scourge and revolting behaviour from our educators”.
The SRC says the professor’s victims have signed affidavits detailing their allegations.
In another memorandum the SRC implores the Vice-Chancellor to assure the Professor’s alleged victims that they will be protected if they testify.
“There is an alleged threat that they will be victimised although we are still looking into it.”
“We have a few who are willing to testify but it is alleged that there is more of them though they shy-away because of fear.”
“By your word to them and mechanisms to cover them, you will help in making more victims to come out and we shall have many victims to testify if/when it comes to it.”
The SRC also accuses the Professor of emotionally and psychologically harassing a blind student in one of his classes.
It says the student has complained that the professor always harasses him about his disability.
The council alleges that professor has made the students’ life a living hell.
And when the student complained to the Dean, the Professor allegedly told him that the university would not do anything to him because it needs his services.
Efforts to get hold of the Professor were in vain as his phone was unavailable.
Staff Reporter