Foreign grad student sues Penn over dismissal

Guang-Chyi Liu claims the University tried to force him to write on his homeland. A Chinese-born graduate student who was dropped from his program after he spent 15 years working toward a doctorate has sued the University, accusing it of discriminating against him by pressuring him to write a dissertation dealing with a Chinese topic. Guang-Chyi Liu, 51, of Sewell, N.J., seeks a master's degree and more than $50,000 in the civil suit, filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court last May -- four years after the City and Regional Planning Department in the Graduate School of Fine Arts dismissed him from its doctoral program. The University has denied all the charges in the suit, saying that the school dropped Liu because he repeatedly failed his preliminary doctoral examinations and didn't come up with an "acceptable dissertation proposal," according to a court document. And last month, Judge Pamela Cohen denied Liu's request for a preliminary injunction that would reinstate him into the doctoral program for the fall semester and award him a master's degree. Liu believes that the department dropped him because he proposed to focus his dissertation on an American topic instead of something to do with Taiwan, according to the lawsuit. In the suit, Liu's attorneys claim that the City and Regional Planning Department "'steered' [foreign] students to develop areas of expertise relating to their native lands so that the students would 'return home' after completing their studies and not compete with Americans for scarce jobs." Benjamin Lipman, Liu's attorney, declined to comment on whether he had evidence that the University discriminates against foreign students by dissuading them from writing doctoral dissertations on American topics. "We think it's best if we hold that [evidence] to reveal in the course of the litigation, rather than through the press," Lipman said. He added that he didn't know what the University's motive was in its alleged discrimination against Liu. According to the lawsuit, Liu had to take three written tests and one oral examination as part of preliminary requirements for completing his doctorate in City and Regional Planning. After failing the tests in February 1992, Liu appealed the department's decision to drop him from the program, arguing that then-Graduate Chairperson Ann Strong's absence at one of his oral exams violated a clause in the City and Regional Planning Department's doctoral student guide. The department gave Liu another shot at passing the preliminary exams, but administrators dropped him from the program after he passed two written tests but failed the third. Liu pleaded his case to University officials in the fall of 1994, and City and Regional Planning Graduate Dean Stephen Putman agreed that he was eligible for a master's degree, according to an Oct. 20, 1994 letter. Putman, Fine Arts Dean Gary Hack and City and Regional Planning Department Chairperson Anthony Tomazinis were unavailable for comment yesterday. Liu also filed a similar complaint against the University with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in November 1993, but the agency has not yet issued a ruling on the alleged discrimination. Liu filed the civil suit against the University on May 27, the last day he was eligible to do so under Pennsylvania's four-year statute of limitations. Attorney Hannah Schwarzschild, who is representing the University in the case, declined to comment and referred questions to University spokesperson Ken Wildes. Wildes did not return repeated phone calls last night. No trial date has been set for the lawsuit.