A woman has settled her lawsuit in which she said she was sexually harassed by a USC professor while she was a doctoral student and served as his research assistant.
Attorneys for the plaintiff filed court papers Monday with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Barbara Meiers notifying her of the “unconditional” accord with the university and Professor David Kang, but no terms were divulged.
The notice of settlement was filed on the day trial was scheduled to begin in the lawsuit. Recently, the judge pared the case against USC, tossing out the plaintiff’s claims for race, sexual and national origin discrimination, retaliation, sexual harassment, sexual abuse and harassment in the educational setting — which the woman had agreed to drop — and wrongful termination. The trial was to include her claims of harassment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The judge also eliminated the woman’s causes of action for retaliation, gender violence and, once again, sexual abuse and harassment in the educational setting regarding Kang. However, the judge said there were triable issues in the woman’s cause of action against Kang for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
According to the suit filed against USC and Kang in August 2024, Kang retaliated with unfair assessments of the plaintiff’s graduate work when she objected to his alleged misconduct. The woman alleges she was effectively terminated by Kang as his research assistant and he gave her a failing grade on her substantive paper for the qualifying exam — even though he previously stated it was satisfactory — because she refused to bow to his alleged sexual misconduct.
Kang, who like the plaintiff is Korean, was chairman of the plaintiff’s academic department and her dissertation adviser. According to the suit, he began grooming her by asking her to lunch in November 2021. Kang later hired the woman as a research assistant so he could directly supervise her, according to her complaint.
Kang sexually harassed the plaintiff by treating her in sexually stereotypical ways, including telling her that his children needed a mother, that the professor had trouble buying his daughter clothes or sanitary pads and also by asking the plaintiff to take his daughter shopping in South Korea, the suit stated.