Tokyo [Japan], May 20: A Japanese court on Thursday decided that a medical school in Tokyo should pay about 8.05 million yen (63,000 U.S. dollars) in damages to 13 women for rigging its entrance exams in favor of male candidates.
The Tokyo District Court ruled that the plaintiffs had suffered emotional distress due to Juntendo University's gender-based discrimination, awarding each between 300,000 yen (2,348 dollars) and 900,000 yen (7,044 dollars) in compensation.
The plaintiffs had sued for a combined 54 million yen (422,609 dollars).
The court also ordered Juntendo University to pay 300,000 yen (2,348 dollars) for each entrance exam to compensate for exam and transportation fees and other expenses.
Presiding Judge Makiko Kamoto condemned the university's biased treatment in entrance exam rigging as "irrational and discriminatory," saying private universities are also obliged to abide by Article 14 of the Constitution, which prohibits discrimination based on gender.
Kamoto said that having applicants take entrance examinations while concealing the acceptance criteria "constitutes illegal behavior as it infringes on the freedom of candidates to choose which university to apply to."
The university had argued that its acceptance criteria were "reasonable" based on the capacity of the women's dormitory.
However, the court refuted the claim, saying there was no increase in the number of women admitted to the university despite the expansion of the dormitory's capacity.
According to the ruling, the 13 plaintiffs took entrance examinations at the university between 2011 and 2018 but were not accepted. It was uncovered that two would have passed the first exam had the results not been rigged.
The university later accepted 48 female candidates who should have been admitted earlier for 2017 and 2018 had it not rigged the exam results in favor of male candidates.
The education ministry conducted a nationwide survey in 2018, after similar manipulation was first reported at Tokyo Medical University, uncovering that nine medical schools had manipulated their entrance exams to favor male applicants and relatives of alumni.
Source: Xinhua