Japan Press Weekly

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2022 September 7 - 13 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Court avoids recognizing medical university’s discriminatory scoring against female applicants as illegal

In a damage lawsuit regarding Tokyo Medical University’s discriminatory scoring against female applicants in entrance exams, the Tokyo District Court on September 9 ordered the university to pay over 18 million yen in total to 27 plaintiffs, falling far short of what the plaintiffs were demanding. The court recognized that the university’s act constitutes a violation of applicants’ freedom of school choice, not gender discrimination.

In the legal battle, 28 former female test-takers demanded a total of 152 million yen in compensation for damages caused by the university’s discriminatory act.

Tokyo Medical University in 2006 began using a tactic of lowering female examinees’ entrance exam scores with the aim of limiting the number of female students accepted. This unjust practice continued until the media revelation of this practice in 2018.

At a press conference after the ruling, one of the 28 plaintiffs, Dr. Hasegawa Maya, criticized the court for not calculating properly the damages caused by the university’s blatant gender discrimination.

Lawyer Sakuramachi Naoki, a member of the plaintiffs’ legal team, said, “The court ruling fails to recognize that the university illegally discriminated against women applicants, which is totally unacceptable.”

Plaintiffs’ counsel head Kadota Yukiko pointed out that the ruling indicates that the court fails to pay adequate attention to the issue of gender discrimination. She said, “In a court battle over discrimination against women, only with the amount of compensation money, the gravity of the issue can be explained. The court should decide on the amount that may work as a deterrence to future discriminatory behavior.”

Past related articles:
> Legal expert team formed to deal with discriminatory scoring against female applicants in med school entrance exams [August 22, 2018]
> JCP urges Education Ministry to investigate medical university’s discrimination against female applicants [August 3, 2018]