Hi, everyone, the following is the message calling support to Ms. Hu Liqun's campaign for justice. While Ms. Hu's case may appear as an individual case to everyone of us, yet, we CSS community just CONSISTS of many INDIVIDUALS, and each one of us is an un-separable member of our community. When one of our sisters are subjected to racial discrimination, the chances are, we ARE all run the risk to be put under the same situation. When one arrogant school does it without facing challenge, the chances are, the other schools may follow the suit, or just keep their discriminative regulations in place. We Chinese here are minorities. If we fail to support ourselves, then we are doomed to fail together. Let us join hands and send our strong support by sending our signatures to the following account huliqun@ifcss.org and spread out the news. It only takes a few minutes of each one of us, and if we can generate enough signatures, we will make a big difference. Is that wonderful? Sincerely Yours, Mi Mi Sr., Chair, Civil Rights Commission of IFCSS National Coordinator of CBS Incident Committee (signed) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Oct 94 15:56:37 CDT From: huliqun@ifcss.org (IFCSS Newsletter) To: hua7291@xld2s0.engr.ccny.cuny.edu Dear Editor: I need your help in campaigning for Ms. Hu's case. I would like the following messages published. Please help for the common good of CSS in USA. In case you want to contact me for any further information, here is my home phone: (313)832-4396. Dear fellow CSS: Ms. Liqun Hu's battle against Ball State University's discriminatory policies has reached a final stage. We need your support once again in this important stage. The basic fact was that Ms. Hu was denied admission to BSU because BSU translated Hu's undergraduate GPA earned in P.R. China, 90.3, into 2.8. Hu complained with Office for Civil Rights(OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education, and a settlement agreement was later reached between OCR and BSU. This agreement rules that BSU has to discontinue their current use of translation method for foreign students' grades, in the mean time, the agreement states that BSU does not admit any discrimination. The decision to merely discontinue the use of BSU's self-made scale for P.R. China does not prevent BSU from discriminating against applicants who earned their grades in Chinese colleges. In fact, BSU still shows no sign that it is remorseful about its wrongdoing and that it is willing to make remedies. Most importantly, it still insists on refusing to use the NAFSA scale for P.R. China, which is a commonly accepted standard in the profession. Besides all the emotional stress Ms. Hu has been through, she has devoted enormous amounts of time and spent considerable amounts of money on phone bills for this strenuous battle. Her legal advisor Mr. Rongwei Cai has also devoted hundreds of hours of voluntary work. Now that Mr. Cai has moved to Hongkong, he remains all ready for any legal help that might be needed from him. I wrote this message to you because I do not want to see their efforts wasted; I wrote this message to you because I want to see that truth, justice and equality will eventually triumph. Ms. Hu has no choice but to appeal to American Civil Liberties Union, seeking judicial proceedings against BSU. Ms. Hu's battle is not one of her own. Please show your support by signing Hus' letter of appeal to ACLU. To sign, send your name, address and phone number to the following E-mail address. (The informatiion you give will only be used for supporting Ms. Hu. This is my promise) huliqun@ifcss.org Sincerely yours, Zhong Ling, Council member, IFCSS Attachment: Ms. Hu's letter to ACLU American Civil Liberties Union: I have been a victim of discriminatory policy held by Ball State University (BSU) in Indiana. It is the first discrimination case regarding higher educational institution's policy on converting foreign grade in American history. To seek truth and justice, I need help from you. I am a thirty-four years old female permanent resident. I came from People's Republic of China in 1988. Currently, I am studying clinical psychology at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles. The following is a brief description of the case. In fall of 1993, I applied for admission to the clinical psychology program at BSU. The deadline at this time for application was already passed. The department of Psychological Science decided to allow me to take courses in the program as a special student and to apply for 1994's admission. At the end of March of 1993, I was told that my application was not accepted at that point and was on the waiting list. The department's explanation for this decision was that my UNDERGRADUATE GPA EARNED IN P.R. CHINA was too low, only equivalent to 2.8 on American 4.0 scale. This conversion was done by the Center of International Program(CIP) at BSU. According to NAFSA(the National Association of Foreign Student Affair)'s published scale which has been used nationwide, an average 90.30 on 100 scale I earned at Fu-Dan University, China's Stanford, is equivalent to about 3.5 on American 4.0 scale. Also, my GRE(Verbal+Quantitative) is significantly above the average of those accepted by clinical psychology program at BSU. My graduate GPA at BSU is 3.7 and 3.9 at Pepperdine University. To find out how and why BSU made such a conversion, on April 1, 1993, I went to CIP to inquire about its method of conversion for students from P.R. China. Kirk Robey, the associate director of the Admission and Sponsored Program at CIP, told me that this scale was created by HIMSELF and it was based on STATISTICAL DATA AND PROCEDURE, specifically, percentile. When I asked to see such data and to learn such a procedure, he claimed: "Your question goes too far! I am not going to change this scale today, tomorrow, and in your lifetime." >From then on, I as well as the Chinese Student Association at BSU contacted the university officials at every level, including the President, asking for the basis for the scale for P.R. China and an re-examination of the validity of this scale. The officials kept stating that the scale has its basis, but they failed to provide anything to support such a claim. Moreover, officials deliberately made many attempts to distort the issue, present false information, and mislead the general public about the facts. >From July 6, 1993, the campus newspaper started to publish a series of coverage on my case. Robey admitted to the public that there is no database for his scale. The public and I demanded that the university use NAFSA's scale, which BSU had the copy. Many people signed the petition to President Worthen for re- converting my GPA by using the national scale. However, the university not only insisted on its scale's validity, but continued to cover up its wrongdoing and attempted to damage my reputation by telling untrue stories to the public. In August of 1993, I complained with the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education(OCR), regarding BSU's discriminatory practice against me and all other Chinese applicants. IFCSS(the Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars) later joined my complaint as a third party, and assigned Mr. Rongwei Cai, a lawyer, as a Pro Bona legal counsellor for the above administrative proceeding. In March 29, 1994, OCR sent me a copy of the "Settlement Agreement" signed by BSU official. The agreement states that BSU will discontinue its use of the present grade equivalency scale. But, BSU denies any discriminatory practices. Furthermore, BSU still continues to deliberately distort the issue, and refuses to adopt NAFSA's scale for P.R. China and to correct unfairly altered GPAs for me and all other Chinese applicants. No one should go through what I have been through. BSU's intentional discriminatory practice as well as its year-long deliberate mishandling of my case has subjected me and my family to enormous stress. The most serious part of the case is that BSU's discriminatory policy against applicants from P.R. China is intentional. BSU has been a member of NAFSA for many years. BSU has had the knowledge of NAFSA's scale for P.R. China and professional principles, standards, and procedure in converting foreign grade, but has refused to follow them. BSU did apply the national conversion method for years, and it worked very well. However, BSU abruptly replaced this correct method with its self-made discriminatory scale in 1989 when the unsuccessful democratic movement broke out in Beijing, which resulted in a drastic lying about the basis for its self made scale. I strongly believe that if BSU does not admit what it has done to me and other Chinese students is wrong, it can discriminate against others again in varying ways; also, if BSU does not use NAFSA's scale for P.R. China, Chinese grades as well as Chinese applicants still have no guarantee to be evaluated fairly. The decision to merely discontinue the use of BSU's self-made scale for P.R. China does not prevent BSU from discriminating against applicants who earned grades in Chinese colleges. In fact, BSU still shows no sign that it is remorseful about its wrongdoing and that it is willing to make remedies. Most importantly, it still insists on refusing to use NAFSA's scale for P.R. China. The case remains unresolved. Justice is not served yet. I have to seek justice through judicial proceeding. Here, I am appealing for your help. I have all the documents on the case. I am willing to provide the whole package to you. Thank you for your attention. I am looking forward to hearing from you. Very truly yours, Liqun Hu Signed