Court, "Even if the professor took a proxy class...No disciplinary action for the head of the university under his/her jurisdiction"

A court ruled that even if a university professor took several proxy classes, he could not discipline his university president for not managing and supervising him.

The Seoul Administrative Court rejected the university's claim in a lawsuit filed by University A asking for the cancellation of the one-month salary reduction of former engineering dean B.

The court judged that there could be no negligence, as it seemed difficult for B, who was the head of the department, to know that part of the class was conducted as a proxy class by his professor.

Earlier, A University imposed a one-month salary cut on B from 2019 to 2021, when B was the president of the College of Engineering, on the grounds that a professor in one department did not conduct classes several times and entrusted assistant professors with surrogate classes.

However, Mr. B requested the Teacher Appeal Review Committee to cancel the salary reduction, and the committee decided to cancel the disposition, saying that Mr. B could not be considered to have neglected his work.

In response, the school filed a lawsuit, saying that B, who was the head of the department, was primarily responsible for the operation of the department, and that the professor's teaching method should have been specially managed because there were student complaints before.