Medical school scandal – Rejected students given a place

Professor Yukiko Hayashi, the newly appointed head of Tokyo Medical University, which has been tainted by a gender discrimination scandal, has agreed to accept students who had passed the exam last year but were told they had not gained entrance.

“We were notified [that] we [the university] had acted inappropriately on matters related to entrance exams. We deeply apologise to everyone who was affected,” she told a news conference. The majority of the rejected students were female and faced discrimination on grounds of their gender.

There were 69 applicants who took the general entrance exam and a common admission test in 2017 and 2018 and would have qualified for admission if the examination process was fair. Women comprise 55 of that number.

Supporters of the rejected applicants say the decision is a response to the campaign for justice they launched in September after the scandal surfaced. Lawyers threatened legal action if the test results were not made public, and appropriate compensation, as demanded by the disappointed students, was not paid.

Hayashi has also promised to support the rejected students with regard to the financial loss incurred.

Female candidates revealed deep disappointment and some even reported depression after they were rejected. In a hotline launched by lawyers, comments were posted such as, “I was so dejected after the university informed me I had failed that I became depressed and lost self-confidence. I studied so hard and spent a lot of money attending special tuition classes to be able to take the exam.”

Another comment was, “I am angry at the terrible unfairness faced by women. Yet I also feel I cannot share my feelings openly because of the consequences, which is facing more discrimination against me when I take the exam next year.”

Lawyer Yumi Itakura, who is part of the support group and is attached to the Tokyo Public Law Office’s Foreign Nationals and International Service Section, says this message is emblematic of the deep-rooted discrimination against women in Japan.

“The young women are afraid to fight for justice because they think Japanese society does not treat them as equals,” she said.

The scandal forced the ministry of education to conduct a survey of the 81 medical universities in August, which revealed that private universities had curbed female admission by manipulating their exam marks for each of the past six years.

Higher ratio of men

In October, survey results made public showed that men passed entrance exams at a higher ratio than women at 78% of the medical schools polled.

Tokyo Medical University admitted it had manipulated the exam results in favour of males and children of alumni for the past 10 years.

The new female president of the university, who was brought in in September as part of a reform package, had vowed to change the situation and bring fairness and transparency to the exams.

But Itakura says gender discrimination in Japan is so accepted and entrenched in government that the going is tough.

“Japan’s paternalistic society believes women are best at supporting men and this is why there are no real efforts made by a male-dominated bureaucracy that manages the higher education of Japan,” she said.

Her research indicates that women attain high marks in medical exams, which is not compatible with the fact that only 21% of doctors in Japan are female, the lowest percentage among OECD countries in a survey in 2016.

Tokyo Medical University explained the rigging was intended to put a cap on women students – at 30% – because after they become doctors, they often leave their jobs when starting a family, making it hard for the hospital.

“That answer is a strong indication that the social role of females is nurturing the family. In addition, where is the reproductive right of Japanese women? Female doctors may opt not to start a family, but Japan just assumes they will and so do not deserve to be doctors,” Itakura said.