A medical school in Japan has been ordered to pay compensation to 13 women for being discriminated against in entrance exams.
Tokyo’s Juntendo University has set stricter requirements for female students because women have better communication skills than men and have an advantage in job interviews.
The judge ruled the requirements were discriminatory, local media reports.
It is believed to be the first such judgment in Japan.
It comes after a government probe was launched in 2018 after finding that another institution, Tokyo Medical University, had rigged the scores of female applicants as early as 2006.
The investigation found that a number of Japanese medical schools had rigged admissions, in part to exclude female students.
At the time, local media reported that this was partly because some university administrators said they thought women would give up the medical profession or work fewer hours after getting married and having children.
Juntendo University, meanwhile, has admitted its actions in recent years have resulted in dozens of women being unfairly rejected.
The private institution was ordered to pay around eight million yen (US$62,000; £50,400) in compensation to the women after the judge ruled that the women had suffered emotional distress due to the university’s “irrational and discriminatory” policies , quoted Kyodo News says the judge.
The 13 women who were awarded damages had taken university entrance exams between 2011 and 2018 but were not accepted, reports Kyodo News. Two of the women would have passed the first entrance exam if the results had not been rigged, she added.
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