University Professor Forced To Quit For Posting Bikini Photos In Kolkata

A 31-year-old teacher was reportedly forced to quit her job at St. Xavier’s University for sharing photos of herself in a bikini on social media. However, the claims were rebuked by the university.

The teacher who requested not to be named reportedly served as an assistant professor for the university. She is now firing back, accusing the school of sexual harassment, alleging she was bullied, browbeaten and subjected to moral policing, BBC reported.

The professor has already complained and also sent a legal notice to the university.

The school has already responded to her claims, accusing the woman of defamation and demanding $12.4 million in compensation.

The woman joined the St. Xavier University faculty in August 2021 to teach English to undergraduate and post-graduate students. But after two months, she was summoned to the vice chancellor’s office.

She was questioned by Vice-Chancellor Felix Raj, Registrar Ashish Mitra and five women following a complaint by the father of one of the students. It turns out that the parent’s son was looking at the teacher’s Instagram and saw photographs of the 31-year-old wearing just her undergarments.

The father found them sexually explicit and requested the university to save his son from such vulgarity.

The photos were selfies taken by the woman in her Instagram story. However, she tried to explain that these disappeared as other IG stories after 24 hours.

She also tried to explain that the said photos were put up in June of that year – two months before she started working for the university. This explanation was rejected by the panel.

"For once I couldn't bear to look at my own photographs, the way they were presented to me and the conversation around them made even me think of them as cheap. I realised I was being gaslit, I started feeling sabotaged," the unnamed professor stated.

However, the university claims that they did not ask the teacher to quit. They bat that the now-former professor left on her own.

"She gave an apology letter on 8 October [2021]. We accepted it. I thought it was a good gesture. But then she sent in her resignation on 25 October - the day we reopened after the Puja festival break,” Father Felix Raj said.

"I'd expected her to return to work after the holidays. I have no idea what happened in these two weeks," he says, adding that they have "no grudge against her" and that "we have been very good to her," he added.