British woman sues Japanese university over power harassment

The university recognized those remarks as power harassment last year but did not punish them and also did not hold another vote on her promotion.

Thus admitting that Ritsumeikan allows power harassment. Shame on them. I hope Professor Hayes gets a big fat settlement, and a public admission of wrongdoing and an apology from the university.

Maria

I wish that she could get all these things, but she won't. The case will drag on for years and during that time she will be subject to slurs and rumours. She will be ostracised by most of her colleagues. Even if she wins there will be no admission of wrongdoing and certainly no apology. Any financial settlement will remain unpaid. Every effort will be made to dismiss her for some completely spurious reason.

How do I know this? Because that's been the experience of any foreigner who has followed this route before.

She is a brave woman and has my total respect.

Interesting, but 70 million yen sure seems like alot of money. Even if you are power harassed, you still have to prove that you have/will suffer(ed) damages. Presumably the 70m is the additional amount of salary she would have recieved over x number of years if she hadn't been wrongfully denied the promoted.

What often makes these loss of opportunity/promotion cases hopeless is that you have to argue 2 very contradictory proposition if you want to win. Those are: a) that you are supremely qualified, with years of experience, hard working, highly regarded in your field, suitable in every way imaginable, and therefore highly deserving of the promotion that was denied to you, and yet, b) despite your superior qualifications and skills you have been unable to find a similar position at a similar salary and you are unlikely to ever find a similar opportunity at any of the 1000s of other universities out there and therefore you deserve to be fully compensated for the opportunity which was wrongfully denied to you.

Logically, if a) is true then you are likely to have few problems finding a similar job elsewhere within a fairly short timeframe and will not suffer 70m in damages from being unemployed or under-employed. However, if b) is true and you cannot mitigate your losses by simply finding a similar job elsewhere, then perhaps you aren't actually as skilled, qualified and deserving of the promotion as you claim to be and the university acted reasonably in denying you the promotion. It's a bit of a paradoxical situation where both are unlikely to be true.

So she can't handle criticism, and wants 700.000?

One question is, would these 'criticisms' fly if she were a man - would a man applying for promotion ever be told he has too many opinions and is high-handed. Answer: No. he would be deemed confident, a good leader, and an active member of the faculty.

I have heard men talking about their women colleagues at university, and it was all so much sexist bs, especially when the woman was their coordinator or the dept. head.

Along the same lines, no-one is allowed to criticize someone now, for the fear of being called a harasser? Whenever two of your peers criticize you in front of the entire group and the rest agree with them and vote you down, you DO have a problem. If that's later called power harasement (although I'm not sure who at the university agreed it was, and how does that make the whole university liable), it's a totally different matter. A good person does not get criticized and voted down to begin with.

Doubt she'll win, can't see anything that deserves that type of payout. Looks like opportunism

@ebisen: fair enough. how about the false accusation of fraud, ie that she faked her doctorate? Very damaging to her career, and obviously had an effect on the vote, admitted by the university to be false, but yet nothing was done. That;s not a 'criticism' to 'take on board', that's slander.

@Maria...excellent comments and facts well stated. Thanks for the replies to some unsubstantiated comments from others.

Someone mentioned about failing to handle criticism ... well, there is a big difference between constructive criticism and baseless ( fake ) criticism! Clearly what she got was baseless criticism and the path that she took is applauded! In this modern day and era it’s jusr said that people still support the harassers rather than the victim ( as evident from some comments above )!!!

If she thought things work the same way as she was in Britain, it may not be so. Human relations here are different from the western individualism society. "Giri Ninjo" is still important here and the idea may be very difficult for the westerners to understand. Orderliness is very important in the group minded society Japan. If anybody who behaves "namaiki," the person will not be accepted.

Damn auto correct... it’s just sad

@Schopenhauer '"Giri Ninjo" is ...very difficult for the westerners to understand." No, the concept is extremely easy to understand, but hiding behind it immediately puts the burden on the accused, and fighting it will make it so.

As for being denied professorship, the whole department will discuss and vote on it. If the two professors were wrong, the vote would have swung the other way. Most universities do not require a unanimous decision; a simple majority is all that is needed. Unless there are three professors at Ritz, there were other professors who also help similar feelings. This is not a widespread problem, as most famous universities have Deans of both sexes, and a female professor is not at all a rarity. I would like to hear some more before making a decision. The story did not mention any possibility that it may have been a third problem, such as the quality of research, and a whole host of issues which were not mentioned

Again @@Schopenhauer: If the university has any Giri Ninjo, they would have taken care of the issue before it became a lawsuit. It cuts both ways.

M3M3M3 Today 06:02 pm JST

What often makes these loss of opportunity/promotion cases hopeless is that you have to argue 2 very contradictory proposition if you want to win. Those are: a) that you are supremely qualified, with years of experience, hard working, highly regarded in your field, suitable in every way imaginable, and therefore highly deserving of the promotion that was denied to you, and yet, b) despite your superior qualifications and skills you have been unable to find a similar position at a similar salary and you are unlikely to ever find a similar opportunity at any of the 1000s of other universities out there and therefore you deserve to be fully compensated for the opportunity which was wrongfully denied to you.

Logically, if a) is true then you are likely to have few problems finding a similar job elsewhere within a fairly short timeframe and will not suffer 70m in damages from being unemployed or under-employed. However, if b) is true and you cannot mitigate your losses by simply finding a similar job elsewhere, then perhaps you aren't actually as skilled, qualified and deserving of the promotion as you claim to be and the university acted reasonably in denying you the promotion. It's a bit of a paradoxical situation where both are unlikely to be true.

Recently it's superly hyperly ultraly difficult to find a similar postion in Japanese universties even if you have superior qualifications. Well, someone need to cover a story about how she behaved toward her students and verify whether what the two male professors insisted about her is true or not.

The university admitted harassment, but let the vote stand. They wanted rid of her as she complained. I hope she wins but she won't, not in Japan.

I didn’t take the comment on being high handed as harassment. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and the freedom to express that opinion. That said, suggesting someone l’s doctorate or diploma was forged is grounds for defamation.

She became an associate professor of international studies at the university in 2009 and was nominated for the position of professor in 2015.

I don't know if Ritsumeikan does this, but many universities have a five- or six-year limit for employees, ie her contract was ending, so Prof. Hayes was probably applying for a position that would bring her tenure rather than have to move on and start again elsewhere.

The rejection meant she was forced to move on - they may have offered her a new contract if she took a year or a semester off, but that is rubbish.

This is the kind of thing a lot of people I know have to deal with. There is no benefit to doing this (other than financial, to the university) , nor are universities required by law to do it. It just prevents them having to honour a long-term contract, and in practice leads to a worse education for paying clients - the students.

The defamation and 'power harassment'. ie lies by the two professors - admitted by Ritsumeikan as being false, yet supported by them through inaction - has led to loss of job security, earnings, and reputation.

What is wrong with saying someone is high handed and forces their opinion on others?

Perfectly standard criticism and nothing more than subjective opinion.

Are we that weak headed that this is now a problem?

If they accused her of having a fake doctorate and its not, thats the more serious issue in my view. Speaks to ruining someones reputation.

The rest ofvit should be ignored.

Also, since when does someone have a right to promotion? It reads like shes owed it. She is not owed anything.

Since her doctorate appears to have been awarded by Ritsumeikan University, I highly doubt that the forgery comment was intended to suggest that the Phd diploma was a literal forgery. A quick google search shows her research was into 'gender, media & politics'. Her work suggests she is one of these new postmodern academics focused on gender studies, critical theory, intersectionality, feminism, social justice etc. She uses all of the key buzzwords from this field (critical theory, colonizing, male privilege, problematic, problematizing, intersection etc).

I wouldn't be surprised if the forgery comment was actually intended to express the idea that her chosen field of study is not a legitimate and rigorous academic discipline in the opinion of the 2 other professors.

A quick google search shows her research was into 'gender, media & politics'

That explains a lot...

What often makes these loss of opportunity/promotion cases hopeless is that you have to argue 2 very contradictory proposition if you want to win. Those are: a)that you are supremely qualified, with years of experience, hard working, highly regarded in your field, suitable in every way imaginable, and therefore highly deserving of the promotion that was denied to you, and yet, b) despite your superior qualifications and skills you have been unable to find a similar position at a similar salary and you are unlikely to ever find a similar opportunity at any of the 1000s of other universities out there and therefore you deserve to be fully compensated for the opportunity which was wrongfully denied to you.

Does this argument work if the candidate was a black male and the employing organisation had described him as above and admitted harassment (as above)?

Would you still argue that his claim for compensation is dependent upon his ability to find a job elsewhere.

While 70m is a lot of money in Japan, denying someone a job can have big costs. This argument is reminiscent of an argument made on the medical school discrimination thread that because the women had presumably not got into a national public university they were weak candidates and essentially not worthy of being doctors.

What is wrong with saying someone is high handed and forces their opinion on others?

Nothing wrong with this argument. In a different case somewhere, no doubt a candidate called Leroy had no issue with being described as "uppity".

The phrases used are expressions typically used against women who behave as equals in Japan and express their opinions in the way that men do.

While 70m is a lot of money in Japan, denying someone a job can have big costs.

At the end of the day, nobody is entitled to a job, no matter how well qualified you are or the experience you possess. It's not Soviet Russia.

Now presuming a person is of good character and gets on well with the rest of the team, then denying them if they are highly qualified and have great experience is obviously self defeating and pretty stupid.

Something interpersonal going on. People get denied jobs for that reason all the time. That's why "team player" is seen to be so important, especially in Japan.

So she can't handle criticism,

Saying someone forged her degrees is beyond criticism. Saying it while the person is being considered for a position is beyond defamation, it is character assassination.

Doubt she'll win, 

She's won already, if she gets $$$ from the trial, that will be the cherry on the cake. Ritsumeikan is outed in the news, national news seen by potential future students, international news seen in global research circles. Attacks to reputation is much harder to repair for the uni than for her. She was attacked unfairly, her degree and her work are there to defend her, plus she has guts as her action demonstrates. She's already found a better job. I wish her the best.

Recently it's superly hyperly ultraly difficult to find a similar postion in Japanese universties even if you have superior qualifications.

Interesting. I'm also curious whether the filing of a ¥70,000,000 lawsuit against a Japanese University will ultimately make it alot easier or more difficult for non-Japanese professors to be considered for these positions.

@Ah_so

Does this argument work if the candidate was a black male and the employing organisation had described him as above and admitted harassment (as above)?

Yes. It makes no difference as far as assessing the amount of damages from loss of potential earnings. If you aren't promoted because you are black but immediately find an identical job paying the same elsewhere, you have no quantifiable damages to point to. However, various countries have entirely separate laws which make it illegal to racially discriminate and allow for payments to be awarded to victims of this, but this is a separate issue. Simply going by the article I don't believe racial discrimination is being claimed here though, is it?

Just Claim bankruptcy and prevent future harassments.

70,000,000 yen is not a lot to ask. That is about 6.5 years salary at professor level at Ritsumeikan. Her reputation was forever tarnished because of them before the lawsuit. Trust me, I know people who have had their CV thrown in trash for far less. The academic world in Japan is a small community and a very competitive one at associate professor and professor level. And someone correct me if I am wrong, but once you get promoted to professor, it comes with tenure. So she wasn't just denied a promotion, she was denied job security, which is worth far more than 6 years salary. Trust me, I have been on a one year contract for my first 10 years in Japan. Its hell not knowing where your life is going next year until the last minute year after year. I only now got a 3 year contract. That added years to my life just because of the decreased stress of worrying about tomorrow.

If she could win the case, she would be really above professor level, she defeated them.

It may be arguable that her subject or even her research was not sufficiently intellectually rigorous, in which case say that and defend your position, don’t make sly oblique innuendos. An unfounded accusation that her qualification was forged is plainly slanderous and would cause considerable impact upon her professional standing and consequent damage to her career and future earning potential, sadly mud sticks.

No one is entitled to a job but to deny that job on unreasonable or false grounds, and that includes unevidenced personal opinions is wrong.

I’ve been there and I’m totally on her side. Those personal attacks against her are worse in Japanese than they sound in translation.

Simply going by the article I don't believe racial discrimination is being claimed here though, is it?

M3M3M3 - no of course it doesn't mention race in the article, I was using it as an analogy. Race /skin colour, like one's sex, is something you are born with and so discrimination on these grounds is not acceptable.

I mention it because people who are soft on apparent sexist behaviour world not make the same arguments when applied to race.

Imagine this news news story:

Princeton University admitted harassment against Leroy Washington, and describing him as "uppity", and denying him a Professorship, but argued against his claim for damages of $700,000 on the grounds that another university could offer him a job.

(Apologies for using a stereotype name for illustrative purposes).

Her reputation was forever tarnished because of them before the lawsuit. 

How so? The only way we know the facts of this case is because she filed the lawsuit and apparently held a press conference to announce it. It's not as if the University defamed her by releasing any information about what happened.

In any event, even if we accept that the comments made by the 2 male professors' amounted to power harassment, it does not logically follow that she is entitled to a second vote on her promotion. If the 2 professors had bit their lips and not power harassed, they still would have voted against her in all likelihood. They still would have been entitled to share their concerns about her suitability and qualifications with colleagues (which would not amount to power harassment). Unless she can show that the power harassment itself (rather than the claims contained within the power harassment) caused the rejection of her promotion, I think she has an uphill battle.

@Ah_so

Sure, I understand your point. but racial discrimination isn't being alleged here as far as I understand. To be honest, I'm also very curious to know why it isn't.

does this woman know she is in japan?

Please be informed that PM Abe is a women promoter, and Japan is a rule based liberal democratic party state based on Japanese rules.

professors criticized her at a faculty meeting, saying she is "high-handed" and "presses her opinion on others,"

She sure proved them wrong.

So, let me guess this straight. The two professors did not gave her a promotion, and accused her of ''prsessing her opinion on others'', and now she is suing the university for not firing them, and for preventing her being promoted? But it is them who decide who will get promoted, so how was she being prevented? Even if they didn't make those remarks, she would've still not be promoted. Sounds like a self-entitled woman.

Sure, I understand your point. but racial discrimination isn't being alleged here as far as I understand. To be honest, I'm also very curious to know why it isn't.

Perhaps there are a number of male foreign professors there but very few female professors of any nationality.

Sounds like a self-entitled woman.

I think this last phrase says it all. You overlook the fact that the university had admitted harassment or perhaps think that it is up to them if they want to harass women and deny then jobs.

How dare women demand equality?

They'll be wanting the vote next!

I would be interested in hearing Patricia Yarrow's (JT poster) perspective as I think she has worked at Japanese universities.

and deny then jobs. How dare women demand equality?

She is not entitled to a promotion just for being a woman. You have to EARN your position. Not being promoted does not mean you are not treated equaly. I can't believe how self-entitled way of thinking some people have. As if they DESERVE and are ENTITLED to a promotion, and if they don't get it, it's because of sexism. If anything, she is the one harassing the university and demanding unequal treatment. She didn't get the job because she is incompetent, or for whatever reason, the university is not obligated to give an explanation, it's a private institution they can deny you promotion or fire you for whatever reason they want. If you don't like you, you are free to seek employment someplace else. If anything, this lawsuit is doing a diservice to all women in Japan, because they will now be seen as a liability to their employers who will feel reluctant to hire woman out of fear of being sued when they don't promote them.

Such incivility and dissing of a fellow academic and fait accompli rejection of her bid for tenure implies that moves were already afoot to get rid of her. One can only wonder, the sequence of events that preceded the final denouement.

https://researchmap.jp/read0145616

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20181103/p2g/00m/0dm/054000c

She is not entitled to a promotion just for being a woman. You have to EARN your position. 

No one is claiming that she should get a job because she isn't a woman. The argument is that she shouldn't be prevented from getting a job because she is a woman. I'm not sure why people find this distinction hard to understand.

The university admitted harassment and that its staff spread rumours that she had fake qualifications.

Does she need to EARN a right not to be harassed and defamed?

@Ah_so

She was not prevented from getting a job because she is a woman. Where did you get that idea from? Being harassed is not the same as not promoting someone. I don't even take that as a harassment, telling someone that they are pushing their opinion is not a harassment, it's rather an explanation for why they are not being promoted.

Is this case likely to have any impact upon similar discriminatory cases elsewhere within Japan either past, present or in future ?

Perhaps she is all that? And perhaps she did forge her PhD thesis... none of things are explored in the article at all. As usual the story is: "Woman claims, such and such...men to blame". Typical one-sided feminazi nonsense

The doctorate plagiarism is something that can only be decided by a commission, in the modern world, including Japan. I don't know what to make of that.

But when two of your peers accuse you of something, and you have to counterarguments good enough for the other peers to still approve of your promotion, you still have a problem. More, I don't know what "the University agreed it was power harrasment" means. The University is an institution, and as such can't agree to anything. A representative of the institution can express a personal opinion (thus not representing the institution), or can bring the matter for a debate in front of a committee, that produces a statement representing the insitution's point of view. I suspect it was the former - someone there agreed it was a harassment, but was not in a position to represent his/her institution.

But being criticized alone is NOT power harassment, unless you can prove the reasons for critique not being valid. For all we know, she might have refused some personal favors to the two teachers, and the retaliated (harassing her), or she might indeed be an overly arrogant person, deserving the critique.

It seems that she was at the University for a number of years but it's only after she's left that she is complaining. Why didn't she raise these issues while she was there and so nip the problems in the bud. It would have been a more effective way to solve the problem,surely.

many universities have a five- or six-year limit for employees, ie her contract was ending

@maria, she might already had tenure like just @stepoutsidethebox said. I know lot of Japanese universities have contract lecturers and employees. which pretty easy for those universities just not to extend contract if they find any trouble. But for Prof Hayes that's not the case.

There are two separable issues here: power harassment and qualification for promotion.

I rather doubt that the claim of “power harassment” would stand in either the US or the UK.

Based on 40 years of experience in US, British, and Japanese universities I would note

(1) comments of the type cited in this law suit are not unusual;

(2) denial of promotion is not unusual;

(3) if you are denied promotion, you wait a few years and have another go at it;

(4) for promotion to professor, you are generally expected to have a substantial publication record;

(5) the subject of the article has no substantive publications.

I did a check on her publication record using Google, Google Scholar, and a CV on the Ristumeikan site. There was nothing of substance. Despite her title of “associate professor of international studies,” she appears to be an English language teacher. She would not have gone beyond lecturer status at the Japanese private university where I taught for 18 years. Indeed, we had lectuers with several published books to their name.

I am quite confident that virtually all Japanese and non-Japanese academics in cognitive positions (those who teach something other than language) would think she was damn lucky to have made it to associate professor.

I cannot imagine any reputable US or UK college or university promoting anyone to a comparable rank on such a thin publication record.

If anything what this cases points to is that Ritsumeikan had a very low bar for giving her associate professor rank in 2009. Without knowing the publication record of Japanese promoted at the same time (Ritsumeikan is known more for its entrepreneurship than its scholarship), it is impossible to say, but the litigant may actually have benefitted from being a foreign national.

Although the popular image of foreign academics is that they are hard done by, that is not what I have seen personally. There are almost no foreign academics in Japan who have held a tenured position outside of Japan and almost none who could qualify for such positions outside of Japan.

Note that my comment applies to the humanities and the social sciences. Engineering, the hard sciences, and medicine are quite different.

Perhaps there are a number of male foreign professors there but very few female professors of any nationality.

Not true but they tend to be concentrated in “soft” subjects such as teaching, literature, sociology, anthropology, religion, education, etc.

*A quick google search shows her research was into 'gender, media & politics'*

That explains a lot...

You have to feel sorry for misandrists like this poster who don't even know what 'gender' means, and who mock Professor Hayes' work.

These are the sorts of people who support fathers being denied paternal leave, custody rights, and decent time off work for family time; who mock boys' shoddy education; and who deride movements like Movember which increase awareness of male (ill-) health issues, high percentage of death by suicide. and homelessness.

Shame on you for not wanting men's quality of life to improve. Ignorance is not bliss.

I had my promotion held up at my university to full professor because of one bigot. For a year! She, yes a female professor, protested that my Japanese ability wasn’t good enough, even though the university never made that a requirement. She refused to understand that you can not add in new requirements once then procedure has been approved. Nonetheless, my union stepped in and suddenly the light made things visible. So I had to another powerpoint presentation, another interview before being promoted. But these bigots and fools are EVERYWHERE, and she should have sued when that happened, and got her union involved. Without a good union, it is game over for us foreigners.

expatNov. 3  11:43 pm JST

None of her pubs appear in peer-reviewed journals, and none are even on the topic of her academic speacialization, which is econ and labor relations. She's won awards from JALT, which are tallest midget contests, but no other accolates. Most of her papers online actually appear to be self-referential swipes at her colleagues. She simply shouldn't have been put forward as a candidate for a professorship in the first place.

Quite right, her resume is VERY thin. In my case, I had to have 50 odd articles, 90 percent of which were peer reviewed along with 50 odd more presentation, a dozen textbooks, and two science grants, and then a public profile of community engagement (high school lectures, and in my case creative fiction for children), and some committee work, and even then....endless criticism. And I made it a point to get along with everyone. But, that doesn’t mean everyone from other campuses, so I learned. Anyhow, The process of being a full professor is a grueling process, but I am in a public university. Many of my Japanese colleagues have given up on the idea of being full professors. It is a lot more work, for a tiny bit if money, unlike the US, whereby things get a tad easier. There they seriously work associate professors, it is incentive to move up.

I hope she wins. They need to learn to respect non-japanese people just as equally as japanese there but they dont. I wish I could sue them from the harassment they did to me when I was living there. I am still dealing with ptsd from it to this day.

Being high-handed or expressing one's opinion a bit too much in the open is a career killer in society here.

I am a free man so it is impossible to be accepted by Japanese BS team spirit while I am appreciated for same behaviour anywhere out of Japan.

I accepted the rules not to be the nail that sticks up though when working there.

One cannot get promoted by saying the truth out here about others.

Forged diploma accusation is the only way she could get compensation.

Metoo movement effect ?

Good luck !

These are the sorts of people who support fathers being denied paternal leave, custody rights, and decent time off work for family time; who mock boys' shoddy education; and who deride movements like Movember which increase awareness of male (ill-) health issues, high percentage of death by suicide. and homelessness.

Give us a break.

A quick google search shows her research was into 'gender, media & politics'

We've wasted our time talking about this character then. She's specialized into creating a fake issue where is in fact none, and does this for her studies and in her real life. If she's half as bad as most gender studies "scientists" around, it more than explains the opinnions of the other two professors.

If she's half as bad as most gender studies "scientists" around, 

Everyone believes you "know" about how "bad" they are

I worked at Ritsumeikan in the early 90s and it was a toxic environment. Even among Japanese colleagues, it has a bad reputation. Anyone who actually gets tenure there is lucky, but its reputation remains good for students, bad for teachers.

I worked at Ritsumeikan in the early 90s and it was a toxic environment. Even among Japanese colleagues, it has a bad reputation. Anyone who actually gets tenure there is lucky, but its reputation remains good for students, bad for teachers.

All private universities I have heard about have a toxic environment! Almost without exception. Even in public universities, the idea of "influence" can make life much less promotion very, very tricky. If one has too much influence, then this person might later on have fame and become a boss, which for the foreigner, ain't going to happen too often! So suggestions, innovation, ideas for change become quite PROBLEMATIC. Thus, the little change in education. On another note, many universities are keen on having women foreign professors because there are so few of them in Japan. We have one on my university, but even she has had problems fitting in with her FEMALE colleagues! So, on one hand, these Japanese professors are slamming her for introducing change, and that was the real reason. On the other hand, she should have wised up and realised that she is in an "Alice in Wonderland World" whereby change is despised! [See earlier comment.] So, basically, one gets a quota of one suggestion for change a year, and expect that to be shot down, and maybe after five years, (If your suggestion is a small change), expect it to be discussed, but not necessarily approved. If approved, you will get criticised for it by some, but that comes with the territory. In a way, it is a CONSERVATIVE PARADISE, as conservatives HATE progress and change.

On another note, I wonder WHICH conservative gave me a down vote on how my union stepped in and stopped the bigot holding up my promotion. Just wondering! Can't have that, now can we?