Dong-A University (동아대학교), a private university in Busan, presents a polished English-language partner page claiming 329 institutional agreements across 38 countries. The page carries an authoritative timestamp: "updated on: 2023.05.01." It looks stable. It looks maintained. It looks credible.

The timestamp is false. And the road to that false date is a documented, three-stage operation — captured at every turn.

Screenshot of Dong-A University's current Partner Institutions page at english.donga.ac.kr showing a clean grid layout with 38 countries and a "updated on: 2023.05.01" timestamp in the upper right corner.

Stage 1: What the Archives Captured — Before the Burial

On January 2, 2026, Dong-A University's international partner page existed at a completely different URL: dms.donga.ac.kr/globalen/8990/subview.do. It was a simple text list — no dates, no partner URLs, no filterable country grid. And it contained an entry that no amount of website migration can explain away: "Western California University."

Screenshot from the ReplayWeb.page archive viewer showing Dong-A University's old international partner page captured January 2, 2026 at dms.donga.ac.kr/globalen/8990/subview.do, displaying a simple text list format with partner institutions including "Western California University."

"Western California University" is not a translation artefact. It is not a romanization error. It does not correspond to any University of California campus, any California State University campus, or any accredited private institution in the California system. It is not listed by the WASC Senior College and University Commission or the ACCJC — the two regional accreditors covering California. It is a fabricated institutional name. Dong-A University was claiming a partnership agreement with a university that does not exist.1

That old URL now returns a 502 Bad Gateway error. It has been archived at Megalodon before going dead.2

Stage 2: The Migration — Cover, Not Cleanup

Between approximately January 2 and January 22, 2026, Dong-A executed a full CMS migration to a new URL (english.donga.ac.kr). The new page arrived with a redesigned format: a filterable country grid, numbered entries, dated agreements, and clickable partner website links — all the trappings of a rigorously maintained, long-standing international record.3

For a casual observer, the old page simply no longer existed. The URL was dead. The content had moved. Any differences between old and new could be attributed to "migration artefacts."

What the migration actually accomplished: "Western California University" disappeared without explanation. No replacement entry. No correction note. No acknowledgment that a named partner had been removed. The ghost was quietly retired under cover of a platform transition.

Stage 3: The Timestamp Forgery

Between January 22 and March 20, 2026, our web monitoring records captured further modifications to the new page.3 The most significant: the introduction of the timestamp "updated on: 2023.05.01."

This date predates the January 2, 2026 Wayback Machine archive of the old URL. The new page's "last updated" date is set earlier than the last time the old page was publicly archived — with different content, at a different URL, containing a partner that no longer appears anywhere.

A page that did not exist at its current URL until January 2026 carries a timestamp claiming it was last updated in May 2023. That is not a formatting error. It is a document specifically designed to be believed by people who do not have archives. Gender Watchdog has archives.

The evidentiary chain is intact: old URL (Jan 2 baseline) → ghost partner present → CMS migration (~Jan 2–22) → ghost partner removed → timestamp backdated to predate the evidence → old URL killed.

Why Partner Fraud Emerges Here: The Governance Record

Partnership fraud does not emerge from well-governed institutions. At Dong-A University, the governance record is the explanation.

Foundation Chairman: Convicted, Removed, Reinstated

Jeong Hwi-wi (정휘위), a younger son of the university's founder, is the current chairman of 동아학숙, Dong-A University's governing foundation. In July 2011, the Supreme Court of Korea confirmed his conviction for taking a 100 million won payment in breach of fiduciary duty (배임수재) from the director of Dong-A University Medical Center in exchange for renewing that director's appointment. Under the Private School Act, a conviction of this severity mandates removal from a private school foundation's executive role. Jeong was removed.4

He returned to the chairmanship in 2017, after the mandatory exclusion period under the Private School Act expired. As of 2024, he is serving a term that runs until September 25, 2028.

According to Business Post Korea, the foundation's board structure — 11 directors, simple majority of 6 elects the president — means any chairman who controls six board seats controls presidential succession. Faculty who registered as candidates in the last presidential selection described the process as feeling like "props in a predetermined script."4 The system that removed a convicted chairman reinstated him through the same mechanism that installed him.

Three Presidential Administrations, One Pattern

The governance failure is not a single incident. In 2009, former president Shim Bong-geun (심봉근) was convicted of embezzling archaeological excavation service fees — suspended sentence confirmed on appeal. At the same time, 213 of approximately 300 tenured professors signed a collective accountability petition described as unprecedented in the university's history. Student councils staged silent protests at the 63rd anniversary ceremony demanding reform.5

In 2018, police confirmed widespread corruption within the Taekwondo Department. All tenured professors in the department were subjected to simultaneous dismissal proceedings — disrupting the academic calendar immediately.6

In 2020, the National University Union filed a criminal complaint with the Busan Prosecutor's Office alleging that then-president Han Seok-jeong had used approximately 400 million won in tuition funds to cover legal costs in employment disputes — a potential violation of private school financial regulations.7

Current President: Samsung Heavy Industries, 13 Years

Current president Lee Hae-woo (이해우) spent 13 years at Samsung Heavy Industries Research Institute before entering academia. His PhD in naval architecture was completed at Pusan National University while he was employed at Samsung. He became the 16th president in 2020 and was re-elected as 17th president in 2024 — the first re-election at Dong-A in 35 years.

In our assessment, this chaebol-academic pipeline — Samsung building ships, Dong-A's president building his CV inside that same chaebol before taking charge of a university — represents the same structural capture visible at Dongguk and Chung-Ang. Different institutions. The same governance anatomy.

Sexual Violence at Arts Programs: The KWDI Pattern

The Korea Women's Development Institute (KWDI) 2020 report documented that 61.5% of female students and 17.2% of male students in Korean university arts and culture programs experience sexual violence — predominantly from male-dominated faculty.[^8]

Dong-A University's College of Arts fits this profile. In 2016, Fine Arts assistant professor Son Hyun-wook (손현욱) died by suicide after a false campus wall poster accused him of sexually assaulting a student during a departmental field sketch outing. Subsequent police investigation and an eight-month internal inquiry by the university established that Son was innocent: the student who posted the notice had acted on unverified rumors alone. The actual perpetrator was an entirely separate Fine Arts professor — identified as Professor A through Dong-A's own investigation — who was dismissed from the university in February 2017 after the inquiry confirmed he had committed the assault and had attempted to silence the victim. The student who posted the false notice was convicted of criminal defamation (명예훼손), sentenced to eight months imprisonment, and expelled by the university.8 South Korea's private school pension authority subsequently recognized Son's death as occupationally caused — an official finding that indicts the institution that failed to protect him.8

What the case documents is not a straightforward incident of sexual violence but a department where a senior faculty member could commit serial sexual violence — including a prior 2008 complaint that went nowhere — while a junior colleague died under a false accusation that circulated unchecked, and where institutional protection activated only under criminal compulsion. This is the faculty-over-student power structure that KWDI's 2020 data identifies as the environment generating sexual violence in Korean arts programs.[^8] An institution whose foundation chairman returned from a Supreme Court conviction and whose board elects its own president does not build functional accountability mechanisms at departmental level — whether the failure involves finances, governance, or a junior professor's life.

Dong-A: The 10th University in the Broader Wave

Dong-A's three-stage operation is the most technically elaborate scrub in our ongoing audit of Korean university partner claims. But its pattern of silence is identical to every other institution in the wave.9

Dong-A is arguably the 10th Korean university implicated in this partner fraud and accountability evasion wave. As we documented in our March 11 report, at least five major institutions — Seoul National University, Chung-Ang, Sogang, Hongik, and Ajou — have executed full database takedowns or "panic scrubs" since January 2026, while four others were caught in specific documented fabrications. Not one of those nine preceding universities has issued a public correction, a rebuttal of the methodology, or an explanation for what was removed.9

Dong-A University joined them. It launched a new URL, backdated a timestamp, buried a ghost partner, and went silent.

The silence is the confirmation.

The Questions That Remain

These are addressed to Dong-A University's foundation board, its president, and Korean higher education regulators at KCUE, MOE, and NRF:

  1. What institution is "Western California University," and where is the partnership agreement?
  2. Why was that entry removed during the CMS migration without explanation or replacement?
  3. How does a partner page carry a 2023.05.01 timestamp when the page did not exist at its current URL until January 2026?
  4. How does the governing chairman of a private school foundation return to his position after a Supreme Court conviction for receiving improper payments and mandatory removal under the Private School Act — and serve until 2028 without any public regulatory intervention?

The archives exist. The diff exists. The .wacz exists. The Megalodon capture exists. Dong-A University buried three layers of evidence to avoid answering these questions.

The questions remain.

Gender Watchdog is supported by EROC (End Rape On Campus).

Forensic archive (.wacz): https://drive.proton.me/urls/KBJMAPVS3C#O3Y7S38aeLxC

Sources

[^8]: Korea Women's Development Institute (KWDI), "Current Status of Sexual Violence Against University Students in the Culture and Arts after the Me Too Movement and Policy Issues" (2020). Official PDF: https://eng.kwdi.re.kr/inc/download.do?ut=A&upIdx=102748&no=1 Mirror: https://drive.proton.me/urls/BAPF2DA400#4RGLR08iLFAJ. Key findings: 61.5% of female students and 17.2% of male students in arts and culture programs experience sexual violence; 66% of all cases across disciplines are perpetrated by faculty. Reported via Korea Times.

  1. Gender Watchdog forensic web archive (.wacz file) capturing Dong-A University's partner page at dms.donga.ac.kr/globalen/8990/subview.do as of January 2, 2026, before the CMS migration. Hosted on Proton Drive: https://drive.proton.me/urls/KBJMAPVS3C#O3Y7S38aeLxC. How to verify: Download the .wacz file, open https://replayweb.page in a browser, click "Load Archive," and select the file. Once loaded, navigate to https://dms.donga.ac.kr:443/globalen/8990/subview.do in the archive's URL bar to view Dong-A's partner list as it existed on January 2, 2026, including the "Western California University" entry. Note: the archive covers multiple Korean universities' partner pages captured as part of our broader Korea-wide reciprocity audit conducted in early 2026. A static Megalodon snapshot is also available: https://megalodon.jp/2026-0322-0417-26/https://dms.donga.ac.kr:443/globalen/8990/subview.do ↩

  2. The old URL dms.donga.ac.kr/globalen/8990/subview.do now returns a 502 Bad Gateway error, confirming the CMS migration retired the page rather than redirecting it. The pre-migration content — including "Western California University" — is preserved in the .wacz archive cited in 1. ↩

  3. Gender Watchdog web monitoring records, January 22 → March 20, 2026 — capturing modifications to the new URL. Full records available to government bodies, university officials, and accredited journalists upon request. Dong-A University Partner Institutions (new URL). https://english.donga.ac.kr/english/CMS/Contents/Contents.do?mCode=MN035 ↩ ↩2

  4. Business Post Korea, "Dong-A University Foundation Chairman Profile — Jeong Hwi-wi" (2024). https://www.businesspost.co.kr/BP?command=article_view&num=363886 ↩ ↩2

  5. KAUP (Korean Association of University Professors), "Dong-A University Foundation and Presidential Corruption Documentation". http://kaup.or.kr/bbs/board.php?bo_table=info01&wr_id=186&page=56 ↩

  6. NoCut News, "Dong-A University Taekwondo Department — All Tenured Professors Face Dismissal Following Corruption Investigation" (September 2018). https://www.nocutnews.co.kr/news/5028380 ↩

  7. Pressian, "National University Union Files Complaint Against Dong-A University President Han Seok-jeong Over Alleged Tuition Fund Misuse" (May 2020). https://www.pressian.com/pages/articles/2020051114420146038 ↩

  8. JoongAng Ilbo, "투신자살 동아대 교수, '제자 성추행했다'는 누명 때문이었다" [Dong-A University professor who jumped to his death: it was because of false accusation] (March 17, 2017). https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/21380949. Conviction: JoongAng Ilbo, "거짓 성추행 대자보로 교수 자살하게 한 제자 징역형 선고" (November 22, 2017). https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/22139633. Police reinvestigation and Professor A dismissal: SBS News (March 21, 2017). https://news.sbs.co.kr/news/endPage.do?news_id=N1004104522. Occupational harm recognition: Pressian (March 29, 2019). https://www.pressian.com/pages/articles/234697 ↩ ↩2

  9. Gender Watchdog, "Nine Korean Universities, Zero Rebuttals: The Partnership Fraud Map Keeps Expanding" (March 11, 2026). https://blog.genderwatchdog.org/nine-universities-zero-rebuttals-korea-partnership-fraud/ ↩ ↩2