Police probe favoritism accusations in politician Yoo Seong-min’s daughter's appointment as professor

Yoo Dam (right) poses for a photo while canvassing for her father Yoo Seong-min during the 2017 presidential campaign. (Newsis)

Police said Wednesday they began looking into allegations of favoritism in the recent appointment of the daughter of veteran politician Yoo Seong-min as a professor at Incheon National University.

The move by the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency follows the filing of a complaint accusing the university’s president and other personnel officials of violating the Public Records Management Act.

Yoo Dam, 31, was appointed as a professor in the university's Division of International Trade in May, just five months after earning her doctorate.

The accuser alleged that the state-run university failed to preserve hiring-related documents, despite being required to keep them permanently under guidelines for hiring full-time faculty.

Controversy over the junior Yoo's appointment arose after Rep. Jin Sun-mee of the ruling Democratic Party raised the issue during a parliamentary audit on Oct. 28.

According to Jin, “(Yoo Dam) ranked 16th with 18.6 points in the qualitative thesis review, but received full marks in education, experience and quantitative thesis screening, which allowed her to pass the first round in second place.”

Jin added, “Professor Yoo did not have overseas education or work experience, but still received full marks for her career while other candidates received much lower scores.”

In response to the allegations, the university said the screening process was conducted fairly in accordance with internal guidelines.

Yoo earned a bachelor’s degree in law from Dongguk University, a master’s degree in management from Yonsei University and a doctorate in management from Korea University.

After her appointment became public, some members of the university community voiced concerns online. One post, titled “Fairness should start with professor appointment,” said, “To become a professor, it is normal to accumulate research experience by working as a lecturer or postdoctoral researcher for two to seven years. But Yoo was appointed less than a year after earning her doctorate.”

The post continued, “We want to know transparently whether this unusually fast appointment was based solely on merit. Appointing faculty is a critical issue that determines the university’s fairness and future.”

Yoo’s father, Yoo Seong-min, is an influential politician who served four terms in the National Assembly, mostly with major conservative parties. He ran in the party’s presidential primary ahead of the 20th presidential election, finishing third behind Yoon Suk Yeol and Hong Joon-pyo. In 2022, he sought the party’s nomination for Gyeonggi Province governor but lost to Kim Eun-hye in the primary.