The administration of St. Xavier’s University in Kolkata in India’s West Bengal state has directed a professor to quit her job, allegedly after photos featuring her in a swimsuit and a gym outfit surfaced on social media.
The professor was also reportedly ordered to pay INR 990 million ($12.4 million) for “causing immense and irreparable damage” to the reputation of the university.
According to media reports, a student’s father sent a letter to the university saying: "Recently, I was appalled to find my son looking at some pictures of a professor...where she has posed in a sexually explicit way causing deliberate public exposure."
"To look at a teacher dressed in her undergarments uploading pictures on social media is utterly shameful for me as a parent, since I have tried to shield my son from this kind of gross indecency and objectification of the female body...It is obscene, vulgar and improper for a 18-year-old student to see his professor dressed in scanty clothes exhibiting her body on a public platform," he also wrote in the letter.
After she was asked to quit, the professor told media she is now planning to take the matter to the Calcutta High Court, demanding reinstatement and monetary compensation.
She explained that she uploaded the photos to Instagram* in June 2021, several months before joining the university and "it's a mystery" how they were made public since they were shared on Instagram stories, which by default only remain up for 24 hours.
“Moreover, my Instagram profile is private not public. There was no way those photos could be still accessible...Those two pictures could not have been viewed by the student weeks later,” she shared.
*Activity of Meta (Facebook and Instagram) is banned in Russia as extremist