Dongguk University said yesterday that it is planning to take legal action against Yale University because of mistakes that damaged the school’s reputation in the fallout of the academic degree forgery scandal involving former Professor Shin Jeong-ah.
Shin, who was the chief curator of Sungkok Art Museum, was hired by Dongguk in September 2005. At the time, the university asked Yale to confirm her doctoral degree in art history and received a verification via fax.
“Associate Dean of the Graduate School Pamela Schirmeister signed a fax message on Sept. 22, 2005 that verified Shin’s degree,” Dongguk said yesterday in a press release.
Dongguk and Shin were at the center of a scandal that began last summer as a series of accusations were made that Shin forged her academic credentials and Dongguk failed to verify the claimed degree.
In July, Dongguk asked Yale to reconfirm Shin’s degree and Yale replied that the diploma and other documents were fakes. At the time, Yale University also told Dongguk that Schirmeister’s fax in 2005 was forged.
Several months later, Yale sent a letter to Dongguk University to correct what it calls an inadvertent mistake. Susan Carney, deputy general counsel for Yale, wrote to Dongguk President Oh Young-kyo on Nov. 29 that Schirmeister’s 2005 fax was “authentic” and that the associate dean of the graduate school had, “in the rush of business,” sent the document.
“Everything else that I wrote to you on July 10, 2007 ― that Yale did not award a degree to Ms. Shin, that the diploma presented with her name on it was not a valid Yale diploma, and the certificate on Yale Graduate School letterhead bearing the date May 27, 2005 is inauthentic ― is correct,” Carney said in the letter.
Dongguk said yesterday that it suffered irreversible damage to its reputation due to Yale’s repeated mistakes.
“When we asked Yale to verify Shin’s degree in 2005, Yale should have done the job correctly and told us that her diploma was a fake,” Dongguk said in a statement. “If the verification had been done appropriately, Dongguk would not have hired Shin.”
The university also said Yale’s mistake this summer again caused difficulties. “Because Yale told us that the fax was a fake, we were criticized by the media for lying and protecting Shin,” the school said. “In order to restore the school’s honor … we are consulting with lawyers in the United States to seek compensation.”
“Because Yale’s statements on this matter have been inconsistent, we have asked the school to conduct an internal investigation into what actually went on,” Yu Byeon-seong, public affairs head of Dongguk, said yesterday.
Shin, who is now on trial, has claimed that she was fooled by a middleman into buying the Yale diploma.
- From Joong Ang Daily (Thanks J.A.D) AAK News, Simon Yu
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