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June 3, 2023 | 1:11 p.m
Michio Hayashi has been accused of inciting a former student to have sex.
A Japanese court has ordered a woman to pay damages to the wife of the man she accused of sexual assault because their relationship may have violated the country’s civil code.
Meiko Sano filed a sexual assault lawsuit against her professor after ending a decade-long relationship with him. Sano argued that Michio Hayashi, a professor of art history in Sophia University’s Department of Liberal Arts, had used her momentum to create a relationship that she never approved of.
When the relationship began, Sano was 23 and Hayashi was 48, and she accused him of preparing them for sex. Their relationship began purely academically, but soon blurred when he invited her to more private meetings, which Sano said she couldn’t refuse.
Sano even accompanied Hayashi on a trip to a symposium where she performed a sexual act that she believed was forced and which he claimed was consensual. Over the next decade, they continued to meet in hotels for sex and traveled to France, Italy and Spain before Sano finally broke off the relationship and filed a lawsuit.
The court awarded the professor’s wife approximately $20,000 in damages. Aflo/Shutterstock
Sano said that she often thought about ending things, but felt an obligation and gratitude to Hayashi, and sometimes worried that turning him down would be rude.
“I understand that I was way too naive, and I still hate myself for it,” Sano said. “There were so many moments when I could have just said ‘no’ and walked away.”
Hayashi’s wife sued Sano over the relationship, as Japan’s Civil Code considers marital infidelity to be a violation of the marriage contract. As the New York Times reported, the woman received approximately $20,000 in damages.
Sano lost her case but won small damages to pay her own fine for Hayashi’s wife. In later interviews, she claimed that while she knew her lawsuit had little chance of success, she felt a desire to expose the psychological abuse that is still little discussed in Japanese society.
Meiko Sano says she was manipulated and manipulated while studying at Sophia University. Sophie University Tokyo, Japan
Sano herself admitted that she did not consider herself a sexually abused victim as she sustained no bruises or injuries during the encounters. Hayashi’s wife said in the court filings that she was resentful of her husband’s infidelity but refused to believe he committed sexual harassment.
Hayashi’s wife accused Sano of “shifting all responsibility for their relationship onto my husband as if she were the victim with all my heart.” When she found out about the relationship, she told Sano that if it hadn’t been consensual, should have lodged a complaint with the university at the outset.
Hayashi admitted he was only guilty of his infidelity and not of alleged sexual molestation. “Being addressed as ‘dearest’ in a message from a student to a professor carries a familiarity that’s not entirely normal,” he argued.
In a similar case heard this year, poet and former Waseda University graduate student Rena Fukuzawa sued her teacher Naomi Watanabe for sexual harassment. She accused him of repeatedly and inappropriately touching her during the time they knew each other while making many unwelcome sexual remarks.
Watanabe’s trial was found to have made inappropriate comments, such as saying he was thinking of his student naked and declaring that he would make Fukuzawa his “wife” after she graduated.
Hayashi admitted he was only guilty of his infidelity and not of alleged sexual molestation. KIMIMASA MAYAMA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
However, the court did not conclude that he had made inappropriate physical contact, a decision Fukuzawa later criticized, saying she had “mixed feelings” despite her win. The court said there was “no evidence that such behavior crossed a (socially acceptable) line”.
Fukuzawa also argued that another teacher to whom she filed a complaint about Watanabe ultimately handled her case improperly, Japanese news agency The Asahi Shimbun reported.
“Even if I had suffered harassment, if (the university side) had said to me often enough, ‘You must have had a hard time,’ or if I had received proper support, my suffering would not have been so great,” Fukuzawa said .
The professor she asked for help instead told her that “sexual harassment is something more serious” and that she “allowed it.” [her] Guard below.”
In both the Watanabe and Hayashi cases, the universities concluded that the conduct and relationships at least warranted termination.
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