SPECIAL EDITION: Volume 130, Issue 2

Page 1

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2023

SPECIAL FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES $1.00 EACH

SERVING THE UNIVERSIT Y OF NEVADA, RENO SINCE

1893

2023

EDITION VOLUME 130, ISSUE 2

UNR Professor Files Lawsuit Against University For Alleged Sexual Assault

Zoe Malen / Nevada Sagebrush

By Jaedyn Young A University of Nevada, Reno mechanical engineering professor, Feifei Fan, recently filed a 49-page document full of allegations of “sexual slavery”, assault, abuse and misconduct. The Nevada Sagebrush received a tip regarding this case which included the official court document. Fan created a GoFundMe on Oct. 2 seeking donations to “exclusively” cover the legal expenses of this case. Currently, there is a total of $3,596 raised for the fundraiser out of a goal of $100,000. “We need your support to seek justice for Feifei Fan, the victim of alleged abuse, exploitation, and systemic misconduct at the University of Nevada, Reno,” the GoFundMe says. Fan later added to the donation description that she cannot share more information about the case at this time until things are resolved. “My hope is that none of you will face the challenges I’ve endured. I am determined to pass on my painful lessons to empower future advocates against injustices,” Fan wrote in the donation description. The plaintiff is a 40-year-old Chinese citizen who became a U.S. permanent resident in May 2020. From 2006 to 2008, Fan studied for her masters in science and worked as a graduate student employee in the mechanical engineering department at the University on an F-1 student visa. From 2015 to 2021, Fan worked as tenure-track assistant professor in the department. She was then on a H-1B work visa until she obtained a ten-year employment-based EB-1A visa. The case was filed against the Board of Regents in December 2022. According to the court document, “for over a decade, the University of Nevada, Reno has knowingly permitted and ratified senior leadership in its mechanical engineering department to pervasively abuse, intimidate, deter, silence, dismiss and retaliate against foreign students and junior faculty.” The allegations said that the University took advantage of foreign students and junior

faculty because of their vulnerabilities to faculty including their legality of staying in the U.S., reliance on student stipend, schooling or employment prospects on upper leadership, little knowledge of U.S. law and lack of financial support to plead cases. “Knowing these vulnerabilities, UNR never provided training to foreign graduate student employees in the [mechanical engineering] department on Title IX, Title VI, Title VII, and relevant policies to prevent abuse and unlawful exploitation by their advisors and supervisors,” the document said. “UNR did not provide them with a clear reporting channel. As a consequence, foreign graduate student employees were not aware of their rights and how to report.” Foreign graduate student employees were stated to have more difficulties than their American counterparts in identifying workplace abusive and exploitative behavior because of the verbal, physical and sexual abuse byteachers and advisors in their own countries. According to the document, reporting rapes is also extremely stigmatized across east Asian cultures. The allegations also state that faculty members left the University because of the long-term “abusive culture.” “Through information and belief, by 2016, all tenured and tenure-track faculty who were hired by the department from 1997 to 2012 left UNR. They either abandoned their careers in academia or irrevocably derailed their career paths,” the document said. In 2015, the department allegedly had only five already-tenured faculty members, three full professors and two associate professors who all worked in the department for 20 years or more. The five tenured professors constituted the referenced department’s senior leadership. “UNR and the [mechanical engineering] senior leadership knowingly took advantage that tenure-track faculty would not speak up in fear of fatal damages to their careers, and thus felt immune,” the document said. Allegedly, the University “financially benefited” through this decades-long mis-

conduct and continued to protect its own reputation to avoid deterring student enrollment and protect the senior faculty for continuous grants. “[UNR high-level administrators] were complicit in this failure, as a scheme, to shield UNR from legal judgment and to conceal UNR’s continuation of long-range unlawful conduct,” the court case says. The allegations against Professor Jiang The document also names Yanyao Jiang, a senior professor in the university’s mechanical engineering department and fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, as an alleged “serial sexual predator and violent rapist.” Allegedly, the University knowingly permitted its senior professors to “turn a higher education workplace into a hostile environment with underground sex slavery and flagrant involuntary servitude.” The case also alleges that Jiang used his power to exploit others in the mechanical engineering department and that he “sexually assaulted female students without their consent and threatened to sabotage students’ careers if they displeased him.” Before Jiang came to the U.S., he taught as a lecturer at Zhejiang University of Technology in China, and allegedly dated female students. In 1989, Jiang allegedly developed a romantic relationship with a 20-year-old undergraduate student in his class and later married this student. In 1996, the University hired Jiang as a tenure-track assistant professor in the mechanical engineering department. According to the document, the University “failed to properly train Jiang regarding its dating violence and sexual misconduct policies.” From the beginning of his career, Jiang allegedly abused and manipulated his graduate students who relied on him for their visa renewals, stipends, schooling and employment prospects. He also allegedly made his students perform labor for personal purposes, such as driving him to the airport and performing yard work for no pay.

In 2005, Jiang allegedly met his wife’s friend, who was Fan’s undergraduate thesis advisor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China regarding student recruitment. Fan’s undergraduate thesis advisor convinced her to go to the U.S. and study under Jiang, who recruited Fan from China to the U.S. In 2006, Fan moved to the U.S. alone and enrolled at the University of Nevada, Reno on an F-1 visa. Allegedly, Jiang sexually harassed and assaulted Fan multiple times. Fan did not know how to protect herself without harmful consequences to her stipend and job, because the University “failed to protect students and never trained foreign students on Title IX policies.” In October 2006, Jiang allegedly summoned Fan to his office and raped her. He denied the sexual assault and threatened to expel Fan, file a police report against her, deport her and forbid her from renewing her visa. From this point forward, Jiang allegedly assaulted and abused Fan many times — including many times in workplaces on campus. In 2007, the University promoted Jiang to full professor, and Jiang allegedly infected Fan with chlamydia. In August 2019, Fan’s alleged decade-long depression because of sexual abuse became too much for her. The document said she spoke to Jiang about reporting the sexual acts. According to the document, Jiang furiously yelled at Fan and raised his fist at her. Miles Greiner, the then-department chair, heard Fan’s office door was heavily slammed, reporting this incident as Fan’s unprofessional behavior to human resources.

Continued online at the nevadasagebrush.com Jaedyn Young can be reached at jaedynyoung@sagebrush.unr.edu or on Twitter @jaedyn_young3.

BREAKING: Feifei Fan Pulls GoFundMe, Submits Refund Request By Emerson Drewes and Jaedyn Young

Feifei Fan, University of Nevada, Reno mechanical engineering professor who filed a lawsuit against the university and a lawsuit agains fellow professor Yanyao Jiang on claims of sexual slavery, trafficking, disregarding of Title IX, amongst others, has disabled her GoFundMe page and submitted a refund request for all donators. “I appreciate your support, but I’ve deeply disappointed myself,” said Fan in a comment on her GoFundMe page. “I am unable make any better changes; instead, I’m just dragging myself into an abyss, deeper and deeper, being severely tormented by reality. I hope that one day, when I’m strong, I can share all my painful struggles with you.” The page was made in the hopes of raising $100,000 for all of Fan’s legal fees; around $5,000 was raised before the page was closed. All money should be returned to those who donated within two to seven days. Students took over the Mathewson Gateway Project College of Business building groundbreaking on Thursday, protesting for recent case filed by Feifei Fan, University of Nevada, Reno

engineering professor, against the UNR for alleged sexual abuse from from Yanyao Jiang, fellow mechanical engineering professor, and pitfalls within Title IX. Brian Sandoval, the president of the university also released a statement on Oct. 13 regarding Title IX allegations against the university, assuring the community that the welfare and safety of everyone on campus is their “most important priority.” The Nevada Faculty Alliance also issued a letter titled “NSHE Inequities And Misplaced Protection”, encouraging reform for Title IX.

Jaedyn Young and Emerson Drewes can be reached via email at edrewes@sagebrush.unr.edu or via Twitter @ NevadaSagebrush


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