Digging up suspicion over school bullying

Kim Seung-hee, President Yoon Suk Yeol’s secretary for protocol, was dismissed after a Democratic Party (DP) lawmaker last week revealed that Kim’s daughter was suspected of bullying but did not receive a strong punishment from the school. After the issue was raised during a legislative audit on the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, Kim handed in his resignation and the presidential office accepted it immediately. The dismissal took place just seven hours after the allegation was raised — and a day before President Yoon left for Saudi Arabia and Qatar for state visits.

According to the DP lawmaker, Kim’s third-grade daughter assaulted a second-grader in a bathroom and causes injuries requiring hospital care for nine weeks. The parents of the victim asked the school to transfer Kim’s daughter to another school, but their wishes were denied. The school moved Kim’s daughter to another classroom so that the two could study on different floors. The school violence committee on the case opened two months after the incident. The DP lawmaker suspected meddling by the school as Kim’s daughter was just one point away from a mandatory school transfer.

According to the lawmaker, the wife of the former secretary changed her Kakao profile photo to one showing her husband with the president after her daughter was suspended from school. The victim’s family claimed that the wife of the former secretary had tried to demonstrate the power of her husband to wield influence on the school’s decision on their daughter. If that was the case, the action was extremely inappropriate for a family member of a public servant. The wife should have removed the photo showing who her husband was if she was at all aware of the ethical duty of a senior government employee.

The former secretary is the alumni of Korea University Media Graduate School, where first lady Kim Keon-hee attended. He joined Yoon’s election camp as head of publicity planning while running an event planning agency. He was promoted to the secretary for protocol last April after joining the presidential office upon Yoon’s inauguration.

The dismissal must not be the end. The Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education and the presidential office must find out if the Kim couple wielded unjust influence over the bullying affair. Any type of abuse of power must not be tolerated. The public is particularly sensitive to school violence and influence-wielding by powerful parents.

The president has removed the office of civil affairs to streamline the secretariat office. But the absence raises questions of a weakened watch over the abuse of power by senior officials. The government must clear the suspicion though a thorough investigation of the case.