Federal Judge Refuses to Dismiss South Korean University’s Lawsuit Against Yale

February 13, 2012, 1:09 pm

A federal judge refused on Friday to throw out a lawsuit by a South Korean university against Yale University, the Associated Press reports. The suit, filed in 2008, asserts that Yale damaged Dongguk University’s reputation after Yale erroneously confirmed that a professor hired by Dongguk had earned her doctorate at Yale. Following a national scandal over the professor, Dongguk said it had lost $50-million in government grants and alumni donations. The lawsuit argues that Yale attempted to cover up its initial mistake, leading some to believe the South Korean institution itself had created the cover-up, thus bringing shame to Dongguk. Yale admitted to its initial mistake in confirming that the professor held a Yale degree, but said that it had caused no harm to Dongguk.

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11245928

How can Yale escape the national disgrace brought on Dongguk by this. It seems very provincial to argue that it did not participate in the disgrace brought on the institution.
609zr

1. Several months ago in the CHE, SK blamed the bulk of western faculty (which the government pushed for) for the failing reputations of Korean universities.
2. Dongguk has a world rank of 1402 (the top 25% of SK) out of 392 universities.
3. Hansung Technical College has a world rank of 20,296 or dead last in SK.
4. Dongguk has 5 faculty in the College of Arts. Two have Ph.d.s from Dongguk, one from Paris and the other 2 from low ranking SK colleges.
5. The SK government has admitted that it has too many colleges and is in the process of closing an undetermined number.
6. SK classes often have a bi-modal grade distribution. Koreans average in the 40′s. Non Koreans average in the 80′s in the same class.
609zr

http://www.educationnews.org/career-index/dongguk-university-los-angeles/

Dongguk University at Los Angeles has 171 students. The majority of faculty, staff, etc. are Asian with 3 or 4 Hispanics.
robertsk42

Dongguk’s reputation is significantly mediocre that this issue did not damage it. It has been my experience that Korean Universities are quick to get into frivolous law suits.
richardtaborgreene

1. Yale was not competent—we cannot expect a low ranked foreign university to determine who graduated and did not from Yale. That is Yale’s job.
2. The Korean university was not competent—they operated with such casual low standards that they could not figure out without Yale’s help who they hired.

My dad was never rich and ran a business—he rejected a customer one day, a paying customer and I asked him why? He said: “you can go low in society but only so low, go any lower and the trouble from whom you are dealing with will eat up any initial profits you think you make” If I were Yale I would assume no Yale graduate would ever work for any university ranked as low as this Korean university is now ranked. That is a good commonsense rule of thumb. As for the Korean place losing money—well Yale did not lose them the money—they lost the money by mishandling the faculty member to the point of public media attention—Yale did not produce that, they did. .