Dongguk university fires back at Yale

A Korean college said Monday it has filed additional complaints against Yale University, which it accuses of trying to cover up evidence relating to a high-profile fake degree scandal that has blossomed into a $50 million lawsuit, Yonhap News reported.



Shin Jeong-ah, a disgraced former professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, was charged with faking her educational background when seeking a job at the Buddhist college, lying that she had a doctoral degree from the prestigious U.S. institution.



Shin`s romantic affair with a then senior presidential aide further sensationalized the case, which has led to a fierce row between the two universities over the erroneous verification of her Yale diploma.



Dongguk said that it had asked Yale in 2005 to verify documents submitted by Shin about her doctoral degree and received confirmation by fax. But when Shin`s scandal broke in 2007, the U.S. university claimed that the faxed message was fabricated and that it had never received requests from Dongguk to confirm Shin`s records.



In November 2007, Yale retracted its previous claims and said the confirmation by fax was sent by mistake.



Officials at Dongguk University in Seoul, in a hastily called news conference, said Monday they have found new evidence indicating Yale had known about their requests for confirmation on Shin`s degree and that the faxed response was an error.



"The newly added evidence show that Yale officials had been aware of the case but denied it, which shows that they were not taking our request seriously," Han Jin-soo, vice-president of Dongguk, said during a news conference.