Legal Battle with NUS – My 12 Years of Grievance

My name is Jeanne Ten. I am a Singaporean. My life has been utterly destroyed by NUS (National University of Singapore). In 2006, NUS wrongfully denied me my Master's degree, after I had completed ALL the academic requirements in my Master of Arts (MA) programme. In 2012, I began a long drawn legal battle with NUS in an effort to claim my MA degree. To date, I have already spent more than S$100,000 in fees. I have exhausted all my savings. I have no choice but to resort to crowdfunding the legal and court fees. I hope everyone can extend a hand, no matter how small the amount, to uphold justice.

In a nutshell, in 2005, I complained to NUS regarding my then MA Thesis Supervisor’s questionable attitude towards my MA Thesis and I requested a change of supervisor. The Supervisor, Dr Wong Yunn Chii, said that the primary sources in my MA Thesis did not belong to me, to my question about how he was going to acknowledge my Thesis after he had already used my Thesis for his own project proposal to NUS and after he had successfully received a research grant for that research proposal from the Ministry of Education.

NUS reluctantly formed a Committee of Inquiry (COI) to investigate my complaint after failing to persuade me to drop my complaint against my Supervisor. After the COI completed its investigation, NUS informed me that: “The Committee of Inquiry, of which you are aware, has resolved that there is insufficient evidence to establish that Dr Wong acted unethically.” NUS refused to show me the COI Report. (I only found out in 2013 in the lawsuit that the COI actually concluded that Dr Wong should be censured.)

By April 2006, NUS confirmed that I had passed my MA thesis. Meanwhile I continued to complain to NUS about the lack of transparency and due process regarding how NUS had handled my complaint. On 11 August 2006, NUS demanded that I provide a written undertaking that I accept the university’s decisions regarding my complaint as a requirement for getting my MA degree. This was unconscionable and I refused. (I should also add that I refused to sign a form of which content was detrimental to my interest.) NUS terminated my MA candidature and denied me my MA degree by a letter dated 4 September 2006. I wrote to NUS President Shih Choon Fong and President Tan Chorh Chuan subsequently. Both Presidents upheld the university’s decision to terminate my candidature in 2007 and 2009. I complained to the Ministry of Education in 2011. In 2012, I started the present legal action against NUS.

I strongly feel that as a whistle-blower who blew the whistle on the wrongdoing by a professor, I was unfairly punished. I have done what I can to see that NUS is exposed for the wrong done against me, and I hope you can help me finish this long battle.

The trial of my case started on 1 August 2017. It is ongoing.

I need to raise S$12,100 for outstanding court hearing fees and transcription fees. The transcript is a verbatim record of the court hearing. Please read my blog post regarding what the donations are for:

http://jeanneten.blogspot.sg/2017_08_24_archive.html

Please help me – will 12,700 people give me S$1 each. I would be very grateful if you could share this meaningful activity with your friends.

Please also read the following blog post for an overview of my legal battle with NUS:

http://jeanneten.blogspot.sg/2017/07/a-5-year-legal-battle-with-nus.html

I started a blog in July 2017 to update readers on developments in my lawsuit. The blog can be accessed through this link:

http://jeanneten.blogspot.sg/

REPORTS IN THE MEDIA

My legal case was reported by both mainstream news media and social media. Here are two:

“10万告不赢国大女郎众筹要再告”

http://www.zaobao.com.sg/znews/singapore/story2017...

The translation of the above title in the Chinese news report reads: “Woman crowdfunds to sue again after losing her lawsuit against NUS”. The newspaper misleadingly reported that I had already sued NUS and lost, and that I was suing NUS again. No, this is the first time that the Court hears my lawsuit against NUS’ wrongful denial of my MA degree. So, the report is correct to the extent that I had turned to crowdfund my court fees and that my trial was coming up at the time the news report was published on 20 July 2017.

Please also see the longer printed version of the news report published by Lainhe Wanbao 《联合晚报》, which I have scanned and posted as an image above.

“Woman Crowdfunds for Legal Fees Against NUS for Revoking Her Masters’ Degree.” https://www.allsingaporestuff.com/article/woman-cr...