Updates

Lawsuit over Korean scandal is dismissed

 A South Korean university’s $50 million lawsuit against Yale was dismissed by a federal court in Connecticut in June. In 2008, Dongguk University sued for defamation and negligence after Yale mistakenly verified a forged credential for Shin Jeong-ah, a Korean academic who had been hired to teach at Dongguk and claimed to have a Yale PhD (“Korean University Sues Yale for $50 million,” May/June 2008). Shin was at the center of a political scandal in South Korea. The court said that if the case went to trial, “there could be but one verdict that a jury of reasonable persons could reach: a verdict in favor of Yale.”

Singapore college breaks ground, attracts criticism

As ground was broken for the campus of Yale-NUS College in Singapore in July, the college (“Singapore College Deal Is Made Official,” May/June 2011) drew fire from critics of Singapore’s human rights policies. Responding to an interview with the Wall Street Journal in which Yale-NUS president Pericles Lewis discussed how Singaporean law will permit or restrict various forms of student political expression on campus, opposition leader Chee Soon Juan criticized Yale for being “a rather willing partner” in the ruling party’s efforts “to safeguard its authoritarian control.” And an official with Human Rights Watch said that “Yale is betraying the spirit of the university as a center of open debate and protest by giving away the rights of its students at its new Singapore campus.” Lewis defended the college, arguing that “progress depends on continued engagement and dialogue rather than retreat or insularity.”

Ritzel wins gold, two others earn medals at Olympics

Motivated by the memory of her mother, who died in November 2010, Taylor Ritzel ’10 was determined to make the US rowing team in this summer’s Olympic Games (“Rowing Toward London,” November/December 2011). She succeeded—and her eight-woman boat brought home a gold medal. Ashley Brzozowicz ’04 won a silver medal in the same race as part of the Canadian team. Another of Yale’s seven Olympians, Charlie Cole ’07, won a bronze medal rowing on the US four-man boat.