Tentative settlement reached in sex misconduct suit vs. professor, USC

A lawsuit filed by a former USC business major against the university and a professor, alleging he sexually harassed and assaulted her for three years, has been tentatively settled, attorneys in the case told a judge Monday.

The woman’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit named the professor, Choong Whan Park, as a co-defendant in the case that alleged sexual abuse and harassment, civil rights violations, failure to prevent discrimination and harassment, sexual assault and battery, gender violence, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and negligence.

The suit stated that the plaintiff once worked as a student assistant for Park, who is decades older and a married father of two.

Lawyers for the parties informed Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Barbara M. Scheper on Monday that a “conditional” resolution of the case was reached, and a document filed by the plaintiff’s attorneys, also on Monday, stated that a request for dismissal will be filed by Nov. 29. No terms were divulged. The judge canceled Monday’s scheduled start of a trial of the case.

The plaintiff was in her early 20s and lived in San Jose when she brought the suit in April 2021.

“This action seeks to vindicate the rights of (the plaintiff) and to recover damages — resulting from the repeated sexual assaults and ongoing sexual and racial harassment that she suffered at the hands of her professor and direct supervisor, Choong Whan Park, while she was a student and employee USC,” the suit alleged.

A USC statement released after the lawsuit was filed stated that the university “takes allegations of sexual harassment very seriously, and when reports are filed, we have a comprehensive process for reviewing them and for providing supportive measures to involved parties through our Office for Equity, Equal Opportunity, and Title IX. We have not been served, so we are unable to provide any information related to this lawsuit.”

In addition, in their court papers, attorneys for Park and USC denied any liability on the part of either defendant and stated that the plaintiff was not entitled to damages.

The plaintiff, who like the professor is Korean-American, was an undergraduate student at USC’s Marshall School of Business when she was hired by USC as Park’s student assistant in August 2016, according to her court papers.

“Over the course of the next three years, Park used his position of power and authority over (the plaintiff) to repeatedly sexually abuse, assault and harass her on USC’s premises and while in her capacity as a student/employee by (among other things) pinning (her) arms to her side and grabbing her jaw so that she was unable to escape,” the suit alleged.

The plaintiff alleges Park kissed her without her permission and groped her while telling her, “I can’t control myself around you.”

“Park committed these reprehensible acts of sexual assault and harassment against (the plaintiff) for the final time on April 24, 2019, just before (she) was finally able to escape Park through her graduation from USC,” the complaint alleged.

The plaintiff alleges at least three other women, all of whom were also young Korean-American undergraduate students attending USC’s Marshall School of Business, were additionally targeted by Park and repeatedly victimized by him.

The suit says the plaintiff is 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 130 pounds, while Park, 76 years old when the suit was filed, is just under 6 feet tall and weighs about 190 pounds.

Park — a tenured employee who was hired by USC in 1997 to serve as a professor of marketing at the Marshall School — was held out by the university to be a “trustworthy, safe and ethical professor, deserving of the trust and respect of the young undergraduate students attending USC and employed by USC,” the suit stated.

The plaintiff alleges USC enabled Park to gain “complete, unfettered access to the young female students who worked as his student assistants — so that he could sexually abuse and harass them.”

She also alleged that USC received previous complaints about Park and therefore knew of his “dangerous propensity to sexually assault and harass USC’s young female students before it hired (the plaintiff) to serve as Park’s student assistant” — yet allowed him to serve as a direct supervisor to its young female student employees.

Park’s alleged abuses of the plaintiff have caused her to have difficulty interacting with others, including people with authority over her, according to her court papers, which say she has been “limited in her ability to meaningfully interact with others due to the trauma of this molestation and abuse.”

The woman’s employment and professional development also have been damaged, and she has been financially hurt as a result, the suit alleged.

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