On October 24, 2018, China Youth Daily reported on academic misconduct by Liang Ying, a professor and doctoral supervisor in the Department of Sociology at Nanjing University. The report alleged serious violations including duplicate submissions and plagiarism, and the story quickly gained momentum.
I saw the article that very day, and frankly, I didn’t think much of it at the time. I simply felt sorry for the professor—dragged into the spotlight for no apparent reason. In Chinese academia, this barely qualifies as news. Moreover, her voluntary withdrawal of papers struck me as a sign of self-reflection.
However, when I read Liang Ying’s response to the controversy today, I was absolutely furious. That the prestigious Department of Sociology at Nanjing University could have produced someone so devoid of basic decency is staggering. Her problem goes far beyond academic misconduct—her eyes are fixed solely on her own interests, with zero sense of the social responsibility that a renowned university professor ought to bear, let alone any semblance of professional ethics. I can say with certainty that China’s current higher education system has nurtured the growth of such distorted specimens. Some netizens suspect corruption may be involved, but that’s not necessarily the case. The truth is simpler: faculty promotion at Chinese universities hinges almost entirely on research output, especially in recent years, where a paper’s impact factor could make or break a career, while the actual quality of the research was rarely scrutinized.
Liang Ying’s most damning failing is her complete inability to recognize her own errors, let alone accept the public’s criticism—a trait particularly unforgivable in someone from the humanities. First, she refused to address the issues head-on, instead offering her resignation as a deflection and dismissing her actions with the excuse that she was “young and didn’t know any better.” That is not the accountability one expects from a scholar. Wrong is wrong, regardless of age. I believe anyone who has gone through the grueling process of pursuing a doctoral degree understands the weight of such an accusation. Admitting one’s mistakes is the first step toward redemption—countless cases have shown that genuine repentance opens the door to a second chance. Yet she refused to own up, instead clinging to her accomplishments as if they could erase the sins of her youth. Such thinking has no place in the mind of a humanities professor.
Second, students seized the opportunity to report that she neglected her teaching duties—a common enough phenomenon in Chinese universities, to be honest. But rather than acknowledging the criticism, this professor who couldn’t be bothered to teach actually claimed the reports were a “malicious attack” by her students! I fail to understand how this qualifies as a malicious attack—what possible motive would students have? What infuriated me even more was her counterargument: “Many students like me very much.” I would really like to know whether those students who “like her very much” would be willing to step forward and publicly declare that Professor Liang is a good teacher. This person is fundamentally unfit to teach. Please, never teach again.
Third, she demonstrated a total lack of accountability, deflecting blame at every turn. Whistleblowers alleged that Liang Ying engaged in deeply troubling behavior during her research involving elderly subjects. This is, at its core, a legitimate ethical question—one that merits serious debate. Yet this professor addressed the issue with chilling callousness, reducing an ethical controversy to a mere matter of “research methodology” and emphasizing that her work was conducted in collaboration with medical institutions. That filled me with an indescribable sense of sorrow. If the legendary Dr. Frankenstein could be ruthless and stop at nothing in the name of experimentation, Dr. Liang is certainly no Frankenstein—because she was never pursuing research she genuinely cared about. She simply used whatever means necessary to feed her vanity and social status. In the pursuit of these hollow ambitions, she became desensitized, inhumane, and utterly unrecognizable.
I have no doubt that there are many others like Professor Liang in Chinese universities, and arguing with them serves no purpose. But I do believe that Nanjing University, as a world-renowned institution, has a duty to thoroughly clean house among its faculty. Those unsuited for teaching can be reassigned to research positions. The cultivation of university students’ character is intimately connected to the ethos of their professors—and the next generation of our nation matters more than anything.
中文原文 / Chinese Original
中国青年报在2018年10月24日报道了南京大学社会学系教授、博士生导师梁莹的学术不端行为。该报道认为，梁莹教授涉嫌一稿多投以及抄袭等严重学术不端行为，事态随即发酵。
我在当天就看到了这篇文章，当时根本没当回事，只是觉得这位教授比较可怜，莫名其妙被挖了出来，在中国学术界这根本算不上新闻，而且她主动撤稿应该也是一种对自身审视的表现。
然而，当今天看到梁莹对此事件的回应报道时，我感到非常愤怒，堂堂南京大学社会学系居然培养了这么一个毫无人性的东西，她的问题不仅仅是学术不端那么简单，而是她的眼里只有自身利益，毫无一个知名大学教授应该担当的社会责任，更谈不上师德了。可以很确定的说，中国现有的高等教育体制催生了这种歪苗的成长，我看有的网友以为里面有腐败问题，其实并不一定，因为中国大学的教师晋升主要就是看科研成果，尤其是前几年，论文的影响因子可以决定一切，而论文内容究竟怎么样一般不作为考评内容。
梁莹最糟糕的问题在于她内心根本就没有发现自己的错误，更不认可网络上对她的评价，这在人文类学科中是非常不应该的。第一点，她并没有正面回答问题，而是以辞职为推脱，并且用年轻时候不懂事来搪塞，这不是一个学者应有的担当。错了就是错了，年轻时候的错也是错，我相信任何一个申请过博士学位的人都知道这里面的艰辛，承认了错误可以重新做人，许多事实证明只要好好认错，都有重生的希望，但是她居然不好好认错，还居功自傲，以为自己这些年的成就能够抹杀年轻时候的失误，这种想法完全不应该出现在一个人文学科的教授脑子里。
第二，有学生顺势举报她不好好上课，这也很正常，中国大学里不好好上课的教授多了，不差她一个，可是这位不好好上课的教授居然不承认自己不好好上课，而是回应说这是同学对她的恶意攻击！我就不明白了，这能叫恶意攻击么，同学们凭什么要恶意攻击呢？更让我愤怒的是，她居然以”也有很多同学非常喜欢我”为论据进行反攻。我很想知道，那些”非常喜欢你”的同学真的愿意出来说梁教授是个好老师么？这种人根本不配做老师，请你以后千万不要做老师了。
第三，此人毫无担当，到处推脱责任，有人举报说梁莹在有关各种老年人的研究中做出了令人不安的行为，这本是一个非常正常的伦理学问题，是可以有争议的，但是这位教授居然非常冷血地对待这个话题，把伦理学上有争议的问题简单归类到研究方法上，还强调这是跟医学机构合作的，这让为感到了一种莫名的悲哀。如果说传说中的怪博士可以心狠手辣不择手段地进行试验，那么梁莹博士肯定不是怪博士，因为她并没有做什么自己想做的研究，而是通过各种手段满足自己内心的虚荣心和社会地位罢了，在追求这些虚妄的过程中，她变得麻木不仁了，变得毫无人性了，变得了谁也不认识了。
我相信，在中国的大学中，像梁莹教授这类人还是有很多的，与他们计较毫无必要。我只是觉得，南京大学作为一个国际知名的一流大学，有必要对教师队伍好好清理，不适合做教学工作的可以转去做研究员嘛，大学生精神的培养与教授的气场息息相关，祖国的下一代更加重要。
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