The Supreme Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul. [Yonhap]
The Supreme Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul. [Yonhap]

A former university professor who enlisted graduate students to fabricate his daughter's academic credentials for dental school admission has had a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence upheld by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court's First Division, presided over by Justice Cheon Dae-yeop, recently affirmed the lower court's sentence against the former Sungkyunkwan University pharmacy professor, identified only by his surname Lee (67), who was indicted on charges including obstruction of business.

Lee's daughter, who was indicted alongside him, had her sentence of 10 months in prison, suspended for two years, also upheld.

Lee was charged with using papers ghostwritten by his graduate students as academic credentials to secure his daughter's admission to Seoul National University's dental school in 2018.

In 2016, Lee ordered his students to conduct animal experiments for a research project nominally assigned to his daughter, then a college student, and had them write up the results in a paper the following year. He also directed them to manipulate the experimental data to support the study's hypothesis. The paper was published in an SCI-indexed journal. His daughter, who had observed the experiments only two or three times, was listed as an author on the research report, submitted the paper to academic conferences and won awards — credentials that secured her 2018 admission to Seoul National University's dental school.

Both the first and second courts found Lee and his daughter guilty.

The first court said in July 2024 that the crimes "seriously undermined the fairness and public integrity of university admissions" and constituted "a grave offense that cannot be taken lightly, given the strong influence academic credentials have on social standing." It nonetheless suspended the daughter's prison term, saying it was "appropriate to give the still-young defendant an opportunity for rehabilitation."

The appeals court was sharper in its criticism of Lee. "He instructed graduate students — who were in no position to refuse a professor's improper orders — to conduct various experiments and write reports for his daughter's benefit, and even directed them to falsify research data," the court said. It added that Lee had tried to coax the students into changing their statements after the crimes came to light, threatened to file complaints against them, and attempted to shift blame onto others, making him "highly culpable."

Meanwhile, Lee was dismissed from his position in June 2019, and Seoul National University revoked his daughter's admission in August of that year. His daughter filed a civil lawsuit against the university challenging the revocation but lost her final appeal in March last year.


jshan@heraldcorp.com