At the beginning of 2015, a university in northwestern China’s Gansu province dismissed a 32-year-old lecturer in the wake of her ovarian cancer diagnosis. The employer, Lanzhou Jiaotong University's Bowen College, claimed that the lecturer, Liu Lingli, had violated her labor contract through her ongoing absenteeism, and therefore deserved to be dismissed. The original announcement of Liu's dismissal was made in January of last year.

After working for the college for two years, Liu began to suffer from acute pain in her waist in June 2014. She was hospitalized in Beijing after a biopsy showed that she had ovarian cancer. Liu's “absenteeism,” which started at the beginning of the 2014 fall semester and lasted until January 2015, was the result of urgent treatments for the cancer, which had metastisized.

Liu explained, “At first they [the college] didn’t know [that I had cancer]. I asked for sick leave for a whole semester. The college asked if I could resume teaching the next semester, but when my mother told them the real situation, they fired me.

“My mother tried to talk them into helping with my social security insurance. My family was able to pay the money, but [the college] refused.” According to Liu’s mother, the college stopped paying Liu in July 2014, when she first began treatment.

Liu passed away on Aug. 14, never returning as a college lecturer despite the fact that a court ruling supported her demand to resume her labor contract with the school. The incident has aroused a great deal of anger among Chinese netizens, some of who accused the college of inhumane behavior.

The college's dean could not be reached for a comment, and a director said he had no knowledge of Liu’s case, China Youth Daily reported.