Dongguk University President Oh Young-kyo has called on Yale University to admit its mistake and live up to its reputation.
"Yale has a long and proud history that sets an example for other schools," Oh said in an interview with The Korea Times. "This means it should be honest about its mistakes and take due responsibility for them."
Oh's comments were in reference to ongoing litigation filed by his Buddhism-based university against the Ivy League school over Yale initially confirming that Shin Jeong-ah - who was later hired by Dongguk - had earned a Ph.D. there.
By the way, that "responsibility" means paying Dongguk US$50 million.
"Deception" was named 2007's Word of the Year by The Professors' Times because of all the cases of academic dishonesty by Koreans in all walks of life---the army, a monk, a bellydancer, movie stars, English teachers, the president of Korea University, and even the Minister of Education---and the first big story was Shin. Dongguk blames Yale for saying Shin earned a Ph.D. there when she didn't. The Yale University president apologized to Dongguk's president, but that wasn't enough:
However, in an interview with The Korea Times Tuesday, Oh said Dongguk would take legal action against Yale over the incident. ``We can make good our friendship with Yale after we settle our losses due to them.’’
Dongguk is suing Yale for US$50 million, saying the Shin scandal cost Dongguk a lot of money and the chance to develop its own law school. In a subsequent article in 2008:
Dongguk University has refused to accept Yale University's offer to make a public apology for its administrative error involving the false diploma of disgraced art professor Shin Jeong-ah.
The Seoul school said it would continue its compensation suit, in which it seeks $50 million for defamation.
An official of the university said Thursday that Yale had proposed a compromise during the first settlement hearing held at the Connecticut District Court on Aug. 28.
``The U.S. school said it would hold a press briefing to make a public apology for its mistake and place apologetic ads in Korean newspapers as well as $100,000 if Dongguk drops the suit. It also offered to develop joint education programs,'' the official said.
The school, however, refused the offer. ``We refused, as we thought we can regain our honor by winning the suit,'' he said.
I covered it the past couple years in this compelling series:
* February 1, 2008: "Dongguk University is getting uppity."
* September 19, 2008: "Dongguk University still being an uppity little bitch."
* March 12, 2009: "Dongguk still uppity little bitch."
See, shit like that's why you assholes voted me "Angriest Blogger."
Yale is certainly at fault for incorrectly saying Shin earned a doctorate there. But remember she worked at Dongguk for two years before they discovered she was a fraud. Verifying degrees in Korea isn't very sophisticated because most schools and immigration officials lack the experience and the foreign language proficiency to do it properly. In 2005 and 2007 there was extra attention paid to foreign English teachers and their degrees---because of a Korean recruiter who hired teachers without degrees in 2005, and the arrest of Christopher Paul Neil in 2007---and in 2005 we all had to go to immigration and have our degrees "verified," keeping in mind that we already had our degrees looked at by the embassy when getting a visa and the local district office when getting our Alien Registration Card. This "verification" involved writing the name of my university on a form and the immigration officer checking to see that it matched what's printed on my diploma.
23 comments:
I just like it that Dongguk insists on taking on yale, which, last time I checked, had the world's #1 law school.
"David not satisfied with Goliath's retreat; insists on arm-wrestling him as well, to save face"
In addition to the 2005 degree checks, transcripts became necessary a few months after the English Spectrum incident as well. I seem to remember simply signing something and showing my degree to someone (who basically nodded as if to say, "Yep, that's a degree."). My co-worker never bothered to take his degree to the immigration office, but this has never been brought up when he's renewed his visa multiple times since.
`We refused, as we thought we can regain our honor by winning the suit,' he said.
Hahaha. Yeah. Nothing more honorable than crying like a momma's boy and go running to the courts. What happened to Ms Shin afterwards?
Nik: jail.
matt: I had to present my degree several times that year, a couple extra times because (1) my hagwon changed names, and (2) I moved campuses halfway through, and I had to show it to schools something like 7 times total the first two years.
"Yale has a long and proud history that sets an example for other schools," Oh said in an interview with The Korea Times. "This means it should be honest about its mistakes and take due responsibility for them."
Yale did take responsibility, offered an apology and offered to settle out of court.
The issue here isn't weather or not
Yale did anything wrong, since they admitted the mistake, the issue seems to be - in the eyes of Donguk - that the scandal caused them to miss out on getting government funding for a Law school.
Now since Yale wasn't the party that hired shin in the first place and, Yale wasn't the party that denied government funding for a law school, then it is fairly obvious that Dongguk is just trying to embarrass Yale.
Think about this issue from the Korean governments position. If Yale were truly the party at fault, then wouldn't the Korean government blame Yale for the whole ordeal and grant the money to Dongguk to start it's law school?
I like this quote from the NYT attributed to Yale officials:“Instead of facing up to its own responsibility for hiring such a person,” the university argued, “Dongguk seeks to shift the blame for its own inadequate efforts on to Yale.”
Exactly. As Brian pointed out, Shin worked for 2 years at Donguk before she quit. The verification could and should have been done by phone call. They could and should have requested a sealed transcript. But they didn't, according to the Times article Donguk university just sent a letter that Shim provided that, "appeared to be signed by university officials."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/education/30yale.html?_r=2&ref=education
I think that Donguk will win the the law suit, but the reward will probably just be twenty bucks in Bennigan's gift certificates.
Now that Dongguk has refused a conciliatory and reasonable settlement offer,Yale should follow Evan Ramstad's leader and tell Dongguk to get fucked - since Dguk will never be able to adduce credible evidence of its claimed damages. Which is exactly what I expect Yale will do, albeit in a euphemistic and legalistic manner.
Brian, you make an excellent point about the "verification" of degrees in Korea. I of course was at the immigration office in '05 as well, and the immigration official basically checked that the name on the degree matched the name on my ARC, then made small talk with me (I seem to remember she complimented my glasses).
The problem is that, like so many other aspects of Korean bureaucracy, the "verification process" is primarily a ritual performed for ceremonial purposes. The credentials are not actually examined for their authenticity, but are simply paraded in front of the right people. Ceremony is fine, but you're certainly not going to uncover many scams that way.
That said, I do still think that an institution as highly-regarded as Yale should damn well be able to keep track of who it has and hasn't granted a Ph.D to.
Yale is certainly at fault for incorrectly saying Shin earned a doctorate there. But remember she worked at Dongguk for two years before they discovered she was a fraud.
Ahem... after Yale confirming she wasn't a fraud, why would they need to keep looking?
Up to a point, it's possible to fake it, and about four semesters sounds about right, give or take a semester.
Verifying degrees in Korea isn't very sophisticated because most schools and immigration officials lack the experience and the foreign language proficiency to do it properly.
They use unsophisticated methods like contacting the school and asking them, "Did this person graduate from your school?" It seems Yale was the one getting the language part wrong.
Dongguk doesn't deserve $50 million from this, but that's what they have to ask for to get what they need to send a message. Yale dropped the ball, Dongguk got serious egg on their face.
"Dongguk got serious egg in their face"
This is true but only within a Korean context which Yale has no control over or responsibility to accommodate.
A University in any western country that hired a person whom they later found out to have lied about their credentials would not perceive themselves to have "lost face." They would simply fire the person, and perhaps demand that the university that had incorrectly verified that person's degree pay for finding a replacement.
Yale made a mistake and said so and offered to pay some minor compensation. That is enough.
This is pure speculation, but it kind of ties in with a half-formed post I've been working on. Yale was careless by not properly looking into Shin when asked, but I wonder if it's a case of not really taking this Korean university seriously, and not really bothering to give it a proper answer.
We know that Korean companies always borrow or outright steal from international brands, and in the case of schools and hagwon use names of foreign companies and universities, and falsify endorsements. The hagwon chain named Yale Education in Korea comes immediately to mind, and we've read before about schools that claimed, without truth or merit, to be in partnership with western universities or private schools.
Western companies don't seem interested in pursuing these cases, or perhaps they've learned by example that they won't win, so maybe they assumed if a person in Korea is claiming to have a degree from them, it doesn't merit a thorough investigation since it happens all the time.
Another area of speculation, and I left this out of my final draft of the post because it's weak and too tangential, is that we can see many of the articles in the Korea Times coverage are written by Kang Shin-who, the worst reporter in Korea's English-language media. The Times certainly isn't the only place covering Shin, and indeed the English-language media is always based on, and two steps behind, the Korean, but we've seen a pattern of finding foreign scapegoats in his coverage of: native speaker English teachers, ETS and the cheating scandals on the SAT, and the series on illegal English teachers. I never properly wrote up the SAT cheating scandal b/c I was out of town and taking the month off, but you read through his stuff and he certainly holds ETS accountable for not only this but for the past Korean cheating scandals that disqualified Korean scores and made it harder for Koreans to take the test in Korea . . . even though it's the Koreans who are going out of their way to cheat. If it turns up in the news again I'll have to write something on it.
Reading the Times about this latest disagreement we certainly notice a strong effort to hold Yale responsible and absolve Dongguk of blame.
Brian wrote:
This is pure speculation, but it kind of ties in with a half-formed post I've been working on. Yale was careless by not properly looking into Shin when asked, but I wonder if it's a case of not really taking this Korean university seriously, and not really bothering to give it a proper answer.
If that is really what's at work, then all the more power to Dongguk, because that would mean Yale is nearly criminally negligent.
Speaking as a grad student now, I can tell you that any PhD is worth tens of thousands of dollars in lost opportunity costs, effort, labor, tuition, etc., and its value — not only to a graduate of some school but to the school itself — can go into the seven figures.
In such a context, Yale would be grossly negligent for brushing off such a request so much that they would give false information about who graduated from there — with a PhD, no less.
Yale was a negligent accomplice in someone stealing something that cost over $100K and is worth perhaps over $1 million. For them to have such an attitude as you describe... why is the animus on Dongguk here?
Dongguk can't honestly expect---but I'm afraid I think it does---Yale to pay US$50 million, and it can't honestly demand more than what's already been given: an apology, and an offer of a small monetary payment. I see Dongguk at fault for hiring her without checking, I see Shin at fault for forging her records, and I see the person at Yale at fault for not properly checking up on her when contacted by Dongguk (after she was already hired, of course).
It goes back to Korean schools and companies not being qualified and trained to do background checks and degree verifications. Peter and I have already written about our "verifications." And apparently these weren't good enough, because even after 2005---and after being verified by the embassy, the local office, and immigration---we were still asked to present them numerous times. But think about it, does some random Korean even have the background and language skills to properly check somebody's academic history? Most have likely never even seen a degree from an American (or wherever) university before, and will thus not know how they're supposed to look or what they generally say. Hell, teachers were given hard times because some degrees print middle names, and God forbid your degree had Latin on it.
Even if they can read the degree, can they follow up on it? Can they navigate a webpage, find the proper contact number, and find out if a person graduated there? Do they have good enough English to do that, good enough English to pick up a phone and call and navigate a bunch of different offices to get the answer? Do they have an awareness tha Korea is 13/14 hours ahead of, say, Pittsburgh, and that calling at 3 pm Korean time isn't going to work?
And, do they even have the proper authority to do so? Remember what they were doing in 2007 after Neil? Schools and coteachers---of course no authority---were telling teachers to go to their university website, "log in," and find their records to prove they graduated. First of all this is impossible for a lot of people, who don't have log-in IDs after graduation. Secondly, privacy issues make this information, well, private, and available for some random Koreans who call with awkward English, without properly identifying themselves, and without appropriate authority in the first place.
Just so it doesn't look like I'm piling on here, it'd be the same for an American employer trying to verify my employment in Korea. I don't have many reliable records, actually, of what I've been doing for the past few years (which is why the blog and the newspaper articles actually come in handy). What's the average American company going to do, just call up ______ middle school and check up on me?
All sides share some blame, but Shin is a fraud and Dongguk was clearly wrong for hiring her without checking, and for trying to hold Yale responsible to the tune of US$50 million. The fraud and the response don't do any favors for Korean universities trying to earn respect worldwide.
Brian wrote:
Dongguk can't honestly expect---but I'm afraid I think it does---Yale to pay US$50 million, and it can't honestly demand more than what's already been given: an apology, and an offer of a small monetary payment.
Though they are suing for $50 million, I don't think that necessarily means they expect $50 million. I assume their American lawyers are gaming the litigious American system in a way that most American lawyers would: you find out what laws or responsibility there may possibly be that apply, you put the highest dollar value conceivable you can on each point, and then you use that (in this case $50 million) as a starting point. If the case has merits, a judge or jury will decide some dollar amount — almost certainly lower — or Yale will settle based on what they think could be one.
In short, you sue for fifty if you want five.
And for punitive and actual damages — Yale told them this woman had one of their highly valuable doctorate degrees — $5 million is reasonable.
I may address your other comment later, but right now I'm off to the Bishop Museum.
Justin's argument that Yale shouldn't be held responsible for what happened in the Korean context seems pretty shaky. Generalize that argument and no one is responsible for anything unless it happens in their own "context"...
It seems pretty clear that, in the Korean context, Dongguk (Truth in Advertising - I work at DOngguk) probably lost the law school and certainly dropped in the critical (in that Korean context)ranking system because of this scandal.
50 million dollars worth, I dunno. ;-)
But there was a pretty clear effect, and I suppose it is up to the lawyers and courts to figure out what that is worth.
@Charles
Actually my argument was not that Yale shouldn't be held responsible, but that the extent of that responsibility should be quite limited. It is not reasonable for us to expect that Yale, in its verification procedures, is aware of all the culturally diverse ways in which its degrees are valued in different countries.
To generalize my argument correctly you might say that it follows from the charitable idea that locals shouldn't punish foreigners (in this case Yale) who unknowingly commit a local cultural faux pas to the same degree that they would punish a local person.
To use an example I rarely punish my Korean students harshly when they use English expletives in my presence although I would certainly punish a western student more severely. This is because I recognize that the Korean student doesn't grasp how culturally inappropriate such phrases are when used in my presence, and frankly I don't expect him to. In the same way I wouldn't expect Yale to fully grasp the cultural import of its degrees in Korea and the grave consequences that mistakes and deception (remember it was the Korean woman, not Yale, who lied) on this matter might incur.
It is reasonable for us to expect Yale to be accurate, however, which is why they should offer some limited compensation.
Justin, you make it sound as if a Yale doctorate has considerably less value in the United States.
Irrespective of what added value Koreans may place on an Ivy League doctorate, there is a real and calculable cash value associated with the earning of the degree and the expected benefit from the degree. It is a value so great that Yale should not be let off the hook for letting someone "paying for" that degree believe someone possessed it when they did not. That's fraudulent behavior.
But before I go and accept your claim about the law school, Charles, can you provide a source. I'm skeptical about that. Not incredulous, just wanting to verify.
Justin,
I'll buy that. This is why it is in the courts, Well, also I think Dongguk wants to point to a "victory" at the end of this - again for domestic reasons.
Kushibo,
My Korean is far too crappy to find a primary source, but I think this argument came up in the English newspaper here. It's a bit tenuous (which is why I said "probably," which is perhaps too stong), but at that time the Government was granting for law schools and judging by "rep" and size of institution, Dongguk believes it was left out for reasons that did not have to do with its formal process.
LOL - again, this is why it's in the courts..
@Kushibo
"you make it sound as if a Yale doctorate has considerably less value in the United States."
Yes, of course it does. Given Korean culture's greater respect for education, and the smaller number of Yale doctorates in Korea than America, I don't think its controversial to say that Korean's think more highly of a them than do Americans. Economics (scarcity) + culture = higher value.
Second, calling Yale's behavior "fraudulent" is a little strong don't you think? Sure they made a mistake, but I would doubt they had any intention to deceive.
Finally Yale is not attempting to be "let off the hook," again that kind of language is a little strong. They apologized publicly and offered some compensation.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2008/04/03/2008040361016.html
Yale's revenge:
"A teacher at a special-purpose high school operating an international program for students who want to study overseas sighed heavily when he saw the score sheet of his students' admissions tests at American universities this year. It showed that the number of his students who were admitted to Ivy League schools including Harvard University dwindled sharply compared with last year. Yet this year's graduates "performed better than last year's," he says. "More students sent applications to prestigious U.S. universities than last year. That's why I was so disappointed."
The Korean Minjok Leadership Academy. a leading high school, was the first in the country to start an international program in 1998. But no students graduating from the school were admitted to Harvard or Yale this year. In 2007, two were admitted to Harvard and Yale respectively, and four to Princeton. But this year, only two were admitted to Princeton."
@nipfuk,
I wonder if that's Yale's revenge or more a case of American Ivy League schools having 10+ years of seeing the 'quality' of graduate Minjok produces.
Teachers are forbidden to give a student any mark below a Korean A (90% or above.) In fact, the students grades often go to five decimal places (ex: 91.05689) I shit you not.
Maybe because the juniors and seniors (grade 11 and 12) actually don't attend lectures but rather spend their last two years self-studying for AP tests to get a couple of freshman university courses bumped off.
Maybe it has something to do with the native English teachers being coerced into writing the student's application essays (the students write it at first, but because Korean management puts absolutely NO emphasis on writing essays--much to the chagrin of the native teachers there who try their damndest to implement a writing program which would allow them to succeed in American schools (and often attempt to do so secretly lest they get in trouble from the aforementioned management)--the end result is often the native teacher literally re-writing the whole thing because it is such a sloppy mess.
Maybe after seeing the large amount of dropouts from Korean freshmen and sophomores in these elite American schools-because Korean management has deemed memorizing AP tests more important than learning essay writing and developing critical thinking and writing skills (again, despite the best efforts of the native teachers there)-they are finally beginning to catch on to what 'Korea's Best High School' produces, and they feel it's not worth their time to admit them.
OR MAYBE AMERICANS HATE KOREANS AND WANT THEM TO LOOK BAD.
Yes, I think the last one is probably correct.
Now I will wait to be corrected by Kushibo, because I am certain he worked there. Funny I never saw him when I was there though. I guess I was too busy being a whiny English teacher who knows nothing about the system.
And with that all said, I have been in Korea long enough to doubt the veracity of Dongguk's claim. I have worked at several (more prestigious in Korean's eyes anyway) universities, and there are truly a lot of lazy shits working there. I haven't read all the articles because I don't really care to all that much, but do we really know if the person in charge of checking Shin's degree actually did what he (or she) was supposed to, or just said "Oh yeah, Yale said she's legit." and then went back to playing online baduk or thinking about the coming evening's romp at the room salon. I've seen this kind of stuff so often that it has become my first assumption when something goes wrong.
But if you think the universities are bad, try the chaebols. Hoooo nelly.
@ Sooke
Yeah, It's most likely the poor performances and extremely high drop-out rate for Koreans at Ivy League schools has to do with ZERO Korean students being accepted to Yale this year from Korea...but the Yale Provost office may, just may... have the $50 million asshatery lawsuit in the back of their minds somewhere when looking over potential student applications...
@Sooke, that's too bad if what you are saying about the A.P. tests is correct. Most A.P. tests in fields like English or History have essay sections anyway, that are worth a significant percentage of the test. I guess that that particular school behaves that way at it's own peril.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2007/09/05/korea-battles-resume-fakers/
A University spokesperson said the alleged facsimile was not in the typical format used by Schirmeister to confirm the alumni degrees and did not even spell the dean’s name correctly.
Meanwhile, the degree Shin presented as her own “has flagrant errors,” Reinstein said. Although it was dated 2005, the year Shin claimed to have received her doctorate, the signature on the diploma was that of former president Howard Lamar, who left office in 1993, Reinstein said.
[end qoute]
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2008/02/04/yale-to-be-sued-over-shin-case/
Last month, Yale officials disclosed that the University has now changed its procedures for verifying the authenticity of degrees. The University will no longer confirm whether a person holds a Yale degree based on any external documents they are asked to authenticate, officials said. Instead, Yale administrators will rely on their own records to determine whether a person has actually graduated from the University.
[end qoute]
basically, Shin and most likely many others, had been taking advantage of a loophole in the registrars office at Yale.
*someone* in the office DID send the fax...but it wasn't an authentic fax.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2007/12/28/following-scandal-with-korean-professor-university/
As the scandal dragged on, however, the University reviewed its documents and determined it had indeed sent the fax in question.
In a letter from Yale Deputy General Counsel Susan Carney to Dongguk University officials received Dec. 17, the University reversed course and admitted the fax transmission — bearing Schirmeister’s apparently misspelled name — had actually been sent by Yale officials after all, although it was done erroneously.
“Responding quickly to what appeared to be a routine request, Yale's staff mistakenly relied on the letterhead and signature on the purported May 2005 letter,” the statement said, calling the gaffe an “administrative error.”
[end qoute]
what these articles dont tell you, and unfortunately I can't link the the next bit for you, is that this scandal did have a huge impact in the USA's college administrators organizations (of which there are 3...they are student support professionals of various specialities from financial aid, academic accrediations to records to the folks who run the student union...I can't link it 'cause it's closed to the public/nonmembers)
and now there is much more attention given to the min. wage 3rd level admin clerk who has access to the fax machine.
at my own alma mater, they wont send transcripts overseas nor respond to requests that originated overseas. this is a direct response to the Yale scandal.
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