A Master's student of Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) was accused of harassment by students in his university class following an incident where he "made a joke" directed at a female classmate.
In response, he has filed a police report against them.
The 34-year-old man is currently studying at NTU Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information's Master of Media and Communication (MMC).
Accused of following female students to bus stop, claims to be on the same route home
James* (not his real name) wrote to Mothership and recounted the incident, which took place on Valentine's Day (Feb. 14).
He said that students in a Media and Leadership class had just carried out a presentation, and were giving out Hershey's Kisses chocolate.
According to James, he had joked about wanting a "kiss" from Tricia* (not her real name), one of the female students presenting.
Although he said he was referring to the chocolate itself, James claimed that Tricia "did not like the joke as it puts her [under the] spotlight in class".
In his email to Mothership, he wrote:
James added that Tricia, along with other female students, also accused him of following them to the bus stop "all the time".
He said in his email to Mothership that these are "false allegations" about him.
In his defence, James stated that he has to take the same bus (Bus 179) from the same bus stop as the female students, followed by MRT from Pioneer MRT station every night to get to his hostel which is located in Queenstown.
He added that he had to talked to his male friends who were the ladies at the same time.
He added:
Student body emails school about incident
A day after receiving James' email, Mothership received another tipoff from another MMC student in relation to this incident.
The student attached a screenshot of an email from the MMC student body sent to the school.
The email stated that the incident on Feb. 14 "caught a lot of us by surprise", and the students had collectively decided to "raise [their] concerns" to the school's management after witnessing the incident.
Additionally, several female students found James' behaviour "unsettling", the email wrote.
The email claimed that James had allegedly asked another student for their address and whereabouts "on a regular basis".
Another female student was allegedly approached by James and asked whether she wanted to hang out alone with him at his hostel.
The students hoped that the school would "have a conversation" with James and give the matter its "due consideration".
Professor tells student to stop behaviour
Ang Peng Hwa, the Director of NTU MMC, was informed about the incident.
This prompted Ang to email James, where he said the joke about the "kiss" was "out of line", especially with the context that James had allegedly followed Tricia and other girls to the bus stop.
Ang ordered James to stop his behaviour by:
- Not following female students "in a manner that creates discomfort".
- Not communicating with/talking to female students "in a manner that makes them uncomfortable".
The professor added that should there be further complaints against James, the university would be forced to "escalate the matter", which could lead to the convening of a disciplinary inquiry committee, expulsion, and the filing of a police report.
Here's a screenshot of the email from Ang, as shared by James:
Filed police report
In his email to Mothership, James described the behaviour of Ang and the female students as "totally delusional".
He claimed that the group was out to pick on and he was bullied.
He has since filed a police report against his classmates and Ang.
He wrote in his email to Mothership:
Mothership has reached out to NTU for comment, and will update this article accordingly.
