Nagoya court orders Mie Univ. to pay $7,400 over harassment suit by associate professor

NAGOYA — The Nagoya High Court has ordered Mie University to pay 1.1 million yen (roughly $7,400) to an associate professor who sought damages for harassment by professors in the same faculty, overturning a lower court decision dismissing her case.

The female associate professor at Mie University’s Faculty of Engineering Graduate School of Engineering sought approximately 40 million yen (about $269,000) in damages from the university. Presiding Judge Yasuhiro Hasegawa of the Nagoya High Court (with Presiding Judge Takahiro Asahi reading for him) ruled on Oct. 3 that some of the conduct constituted harassment.

According to the ruling, the woman was hired as an assistant professor in April 2008. Under the university’s regulations at the time, when hiring an assistant professor in the Faculty of Engineering, it is not allowed to specify a fixed term of employment. The professors in charge of the hiring interviews were aware of this rule but concluded her contract with a five-year tenure. Although the woman subsequently realized that her tenure could not be fixed and her employment continued, Presiding Judge Hasegawa noted that “the woman’s position was placed in a precarious situation.”

In addition, the university installed a camera in the woman’s office to monitor damage in the event of a disaster. However, the university did not explain this to the woman and allowed third parties other than the university to view the footage, which the court found to be an “unreasonable invasion of privacy.”

The university told the Mainichi Shimbun that it would refrain from commenting because it had not received the text of the ruling or other documents.

(Japanese original by Hiroko Michishita, Nagoya News Department)