College Wins Lawsuit Filed by Students

A high-profile lawsuit in Central China's Hunan Province ended this month in favour of the college charged with damaging six students' reputations. The first suit of its kind in China, it attracted the attention of educators around the country.

According to the ruling by the Changsha Intermediate People's Court, the six student plaintiffs from Hunan Foreign Languages and Foreign Trade College have no case.

This judgment also repeals the December decision of a district court, which demanded the college pay the students 200,000 yuan (US$24,000) for economic losses and emotional distress.

The case began in October, when a college investigation indicated that the six newly admitted students violated school regulations.

College President Liu Xianxi said two women and two men involved in the case reportedly slept together in a women's dormitory. The other two plaintiffs, a man and a woman, were found to have gotten drunk several times and stayed in the women's dormitory past midnight.

Liu said the college discharged the six students for violating the college's bans on drinking, smoking and intramural love affairs.

The students sued the college the same month for infringing on their reputations. They claimed one of the college heads openly accused the students of indecent behaviour at a meeting of male students.

In denying the accusations, the college stressed that it acted properly by handling the affairs according to regulations issued by educational departments. Liu noted that expulsion is legal to keep order on the campus.

China's colleges and universities do not let undergraduates cohabit or get married.

The college appealed to the Changsha Intermediate People's Court after it lost in the district court.

On March 5 the higher court ruled that the college can legally discipline students to correct their mistakes and warn other students. The court also ruled that people's courts are not set up to oversee college administrative decisions.

Liu said the judgment could help his administration offer his students a healthy environment.

Legal experts expressed little surprise about the March 5 ruling. A director of the policy and law department of the provincial educational committee noted that the case will not change any regulations of universities and colleges in Hunan.

Sun Xianzhong, a law expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, agreed with the final judgment. He said it is lawful for a college to demand its students observe regulations written according to national laws. And, Sun said, the college did not encroach on the students' reputations because the students were obligated to follow campus rules.

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