Jeanne-Marie Ten Leu Jiun who shared a blog post about her claims that the National University of Singapore had wrongfully denied her of her MA degree for over 12 years, has taken down her blog in response to a demand by the university. The amount that she had sought to raise for additional cost in her law suit against the university, has been reached on Friday.
In her removed blogpost, Ten claims that her MA degree was denied by the university after refusing to bow down to demands to accept the university’s decisions regarding her complaint against her MA supervisor.
In her complaint to NUS, she claims that her supervisor made use of her scholarly work to apply for funding for his own project and did not credit her in the project. This was backed in a finding by a commission of inquiry organised by the NUS.
Ten wrote, “This lawsuit is not just about Dr Wong’s failures as a supervisor or his professional enrichment through using my MA thesis. Most importantly, it is about the wrongful termination of my MA candidature by NUS. The termination of my candidature has affected my life. NUS failed to observe due process in investigating my complaint against Dr Wong, and penalised me for my refusal to accept the NUS’ dubious investigation.”
She claimed that not only has NUS tried to strike out her case a number of times, the university had also tried to make her a bankrupt by issuing her a “statutory demand” under The Bankruptcy Act (dated 3 May 2016) to pay the cost orders in the interim applications that I had lost to the university.
She said that she did not want to drop this matter because she believes that justice should be served. “I hope that my 12-year battle with NUS will make it to Court. I’m asking Singaporeans to stand behind a fellow Singaporean, and crowdfund justice. It is truly unfortunate that I have to raise $11,000 just for the Court hearing fees and at such short notice. NUS has used its own power to bully me and is able to use the legal system to its advantage as a result of the unequal access to resources.”
After the blogpost was published, it was widely shared on social media and eventually, NUS wrote a demand to Ten to remove the posts which she complied.
She wrote, “NUS has demanded that I remove the blog posts of 18 and 19 July 2017. If I do not, NUS will enforce its legal rights against me. I have taken down the two posts. Nonetheless, I will not give up the fight. Please continue to support me.”
As of 21 July, Ten shared on her blog that she has reached the targeted amount meant for S$5,000 additional court fees for two additional days of hearing. According to Ten, the Court has directed that the number of hearing days to be increased to a total of six days from four days due to the six witnesses called forth by NUS.
The hearing is set to be heard at the High Court on 1 August.
