South China Normal University listed having special relations with a married person (homewrecking)” into the new school rules as punishable behaviors.

The phenomena of university students being mistresses of wealth men has become a growing social issue in China. Chongqing Normal University and Southwest Normal University are the first two Universities which started to include “being an escort (三陪 sex workers), a mistress (二奶 Ernai) and having one-night stands” into the school rules. Student with such bad behaviors are subject to expulsion. And South China Normal University also listed “messing around with opposite sex and having special relations with a married person (homewrecking)” into the new school rules as punishable behaviors.



(QQ) Recently the “Chongqing Normal University Student Disciplinary Process Management Regulations” is to be implemented in the school. One of the rules was “student who is found to be working as an escort; or is a mistress, male mistress, or having ‘one-night stands’ will to be expelled” which caused uproar among the students.


Teacher Zhang of the Chongqing Normal University Students Affairs said that the “Regulations” was revised strictly based on the spirit of the City Board of Education’s “Developing and Modifying Colleges and Universities student Management System” article number forty second: “Damaging the image of the university students, undermining social morality”. On May 22, the “regulations” was formally in trial, and was made into a display panel in mid-June. It was placed in a building where more teachers and students can see, hoping students would express their views. However until yesterday, not one student gave feedbacks to the Students Affairs.

“We did not conduct online surveys because the involvement of the students would be smaller.” Teacher Zhang said, the time period for commenting on the “Regulations” ends on the 28th of this month. If no major changes, it will be formally written into the “Student Handbook”. Zhang also said that this move is to regulate and eliminate students’ bad behaviors.


“No participation does not mean we don’t want to participate” A junior student of the history department said, because we think “there is no use”, so we want to use the power the media to carry out a wide range of discussion and give students a compelling conclusion.

Second year student Cao believes no matter what the students do are their own business, school should follow the rules but there is no need for admissible rules.


A student named Gu thinks school’s approach is very meaningless, because there will be no effect using rules and regulations to restrain moral codes. For example one-night stand is a vague concept, who is going to verify and how to determine such thing?


A graduate student Xie Heping who is just visiting Chongqing said, now university students are allowed to get married, these “regulations” have no practical effect. Expelling students for one-night stand means lack of respect for the students. Ethical issues should not be controlled by administrative rules.


As for the definitions of mistress, male mistress and one-night stand etc. phenomenon, Teacher Zhang said they rely on the public security organs. Once the public security departments clearly determine the situations school will process them accordingly. However, when students are found to have sexual relations, whether it is “one-night stand” or not, Zhang said “is difficult to determine”.


With 30 years experience in Higher Education, Southwest China Normal University Li Dawu thinks there has been decline in moral values of the students due to bad social influences. Schools have every right and are necessary to regulate the behavior of the students.


“This is a moral issue but not in the scope of administration…” lawyer Zheng Jie believes even if putting moral issues into the “Student handbook” will have no good practical use. Moreover, the punishment of expulsion is inappropriate. Depriving the students from leaning is excessively harsh. The Ministry of Education explicitly states the punishment of expulsion is only for someone who committed crimes. He believes that the schools cannot exceed the general rules and regulations of the Ministry of Education.


The views of people who are in favor of the regulation: the purpose of the students is learning, and the “evil trends” should be fought against. The trend of university students becoming mistresses has been more and more serious, if we don’t do anything, it will only harm more students.


The views of the opposed: Expulsion is inappropriate. Depriving the students from leaning is excessively harsh. The Ministry of Education explicitly states the punishment of expulsion is only for someone committed crimes. Plus all of these are students’ personal business, schools will not even be able to properly define them, and also have no right to interfere.


South China Normal University introduced the new school rules. “Messing around with opposite sex and damaging (married) families” etc. are listed as breaking the rules. Illegally cohabit, messing around opposite sex, damaging married families and such behaviors will be subject to be punished by the new sanctions promulgated by South China Normal University.


The school said that the new rules will guide students’ ethics; at the same time it also stated when the students are to be punished with “placing in school under observation”, “expulsion” and so on, they have the right to request a hearing. South China Normal University’s new “Provisional Measures of Student Disciplinary Action” categorized student’s bad behaviors into seven categories, and clearly defined disciplinary actions for each. The school said this reduces subjective judgment when the student is being punished. “Illegally cohabiting with opposite sex, messing around with opposite sex in the name of dating, knowingly keeping a special relationship which is not accepted by the laws or ethics of our country with a married person… students with these serious bad behaviors will be punished with “placing in school under observation”. “Often on the internet, watch DVDs or playing games during late night… which bothers other ‘normal people’ from resting, serious offenders which are also to be given the same punishment”. These are all actions which break the rules and were written into the “Provisional Measures of Student Disciplinary Action”.


South China Normal University Student Affairs Minister, Xi said many regulations may not be possibly to be implemented, because if students really have such behaviors, sanctions would be more difficult for forensic investigation; second, the number of people being punished by disciplinary action is only about twenty to thirty in each year, so these addition to the regulations formulated evidence-based actions, but more importantly is for regulating students’ ethics; using legal education materials in a form of warning to clearly define the danger zone in order to guide the students to restrict their behaviors.


Students of South China Normal University have different views on the new regulations, some agree and some believe that the school is making a mountain out of a molehill. But many students think these regulations will be difficult to enforce.