Toru Hanai/Reuters
Tokyo Medical School apologized for systematically lowering the scores of women who took its entrance exam, while also admitting it raised the numbers on several applicants who made donations. “To those persons whom we have caused tremendous hardship, especially female candidates whom we have hurt, we will do everything we can,” acting university President Keisuke Miyazawa said at a news conference. “This discrimination against women is something that should have never happened. We will abolish it,” said another official. Administrators also admitted to lowering entrance exam scores for men who applied to the university four times or more—and to raising the scores of 18 applicants by as many as 49 points in exchange for donations. In July, a senior education ministry official, in addition to the university’s president and chairman, were indicted in an alleged scheme in which the official bribed the administrators to grant his son entrance. For the past two years, the school had multiplied scores on one part of the exam by 0.8, adding 20 points to the scores of men who applied for the first or second time, 10 points to men who applied for a third time, and no points to women or men who had already applied three times.