The SOPA Scandal
Do you know what SOPA is? It’s one of the most popular schools in South Korea, which has successfully produced a lot of multitalented students and K-Pop idols. SOPA is an abbreviation of Seoul of Performing Arts. Some of the graduates from SOPA include Red Velvet’s Seulgi, Girls Day’s Hyeri, EXO’s Kai and Sehun, NCT’s Jaehyun, BTS’s Jungkook, and many more.
SOPA became a hot topic when the students and the graduates started speaking up about corruption and the degradation of students, all perpetrated by the school’s administration. In February 2017, some SOPA students released a performance video to reveal the scandals in SOPA. SOPA students also were allegedly involved in some of the scandals, such as being forced to do skinship with other people, including soldiers. They were also being forced to give performances in front of the principal with minimal clothes, and to do it privately.
The SOPA students were trying to reveal the scandals through social media, but the principal and others were threatening them and said that all of that was libel. That’s why the SOPA students were making and releasing the performance video to explain everything, even though they knew that it could cause trouble for them. Meanwhile, the corruption scandal was due to the principal and his wife having taken school money totaling US $89,400.
Then Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education told SOPA to dismiss the principal and the executive parties from SOPA, but they didn’t do that. Despite the investigation, the principal and other parties didn’t show any signs of resigning. Later, the parents of SOPA students also signed a petition to the government to dismiss the SOPA officials.
During the investigation, Seoul Guro Police confiscated some of the school’s property, such as the chairman’s office and administrative room. It was also reported that the principal of SOPA and his wife were becoming the suspects of the scandal, but they refused to be interviewed with pers.
Due to the scandal, SOPA received a lot of online criticism from the netizens, and people started to lose their trust in the school. However, a lot of people also complimented those students who bravely made performance videos to revealed the crime at their school.
Watch the video of SOPA’s student performance here:
