Australian academic asked foreign students for sex: Probe

SYDNEY - A former university tutor in Perth pressured a Chinese girl student and three other foreigners for sex in exchange of higher marks, Australia’s corruption watchdog has said.

The former Curtin University tutor invited a vulnerable foreign student to his house and asked her to “satisfy him” for higher marks, Australian new agency AAP reported Thursday citing the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC).

The CCC, in its report tabled in parliament Thursday, said that the Chinese woman, in her early 20s, was one of four international students whom Dr. Nasrul Ali pressured for sex in exchange for higher marks.

The CCC found one of the students was asked to meet Nasrul Ali at a McDonald’s restaurant to discuss her marks. At their 7 p.m. meeting, Dr. Ali told her it was too noisy and asked her back to his home nearby, the report said.

“Dr. Ali asked (her) how a Chinese student would normally have satisfied a Chinese teacher, to which (she) responded by telling him a Chinese student would try to be a good student and get good grades,” the CCC said in its report.

“According to (the student), it was then that he told her that she could live with him. At this time, Dr. Ali had his arm along the back of the couch behind her which made her feel uncomfortable.”

The academic then said “he wanted her to try and satisfy him, that he wanted her to stay the night (but) she told him that she did not have time” and left.

The CCC said Dr. Ali also conducted night-time meetings with two other Chinese students and suggested they could make up for their low marks through “non-academic” means.

The three Chinese women were being financially supported by their families and had to pass the courses or risk losing their student visas, the CCC report said.

It found that while there was no sexual contact between Dr. Ali and the students, he did target “young, vulnerable, full fee-paying overseas female students”.

The CCC also found Dr. Ali reduced the marks of a fourth female student from Indonesia because he was angry with her when she did not meet him while they were separately visiting Malaysia.

Curtin University Vice-Chancellor Jeanette Hacket said Dr. Ali was employed as a casual in the university’s School of Economics and Finance in 2004 and was sacked in mid-2009, shortly after the allegations of misconduct arose.

Hackett said she was aware Dr. Ali was now working as a finance lecturer at another university, which has now been confirmed as Murdoch University.

At the time of his employment, Curtin University did not conduct any background screenings or police checks of employees, Prof. Hacket said.

“The university now has in place a sessional staff policy and procedure in which every person employed at Curtin will undergo rigorous screening,” she said Thursday.

Prof. Hacket said the university had written to the students and apologised, while also refunding their tuition fees for the courses.

The vice-chancellor admitted the CCC’s investigation had exposed weaknesses in the university’s policies and procedures.

Curtin had already taken “prompt and vigorous action” to address these issues, she added.