Petition against the Injustice Done to a Chinese Female Student at Duke University

I am Zihui Tang, a Chinese female student, who was offered five-year funding in 2003 to commence my Ph.D. program in Chinese History at DukeЇs History Department. I am appealing to you for fairness I deserve as an international student at Duke University, given the fact that I have been suffering humiliation, discrimination and lack of academic support and professional advising at the hands of my former advisor Professor Sucheta Mazumdar, as well as the grave injustice that both DukeЇs History Department and the Graduate School have done to me in the process of dealing with my complaints against Professor Mazumdar thus far.

I believe you have already had knowledge about my case after reading through my letter to you on June 28, 2006. I also want to restate that I DO NOT ACCEPT the final decision of DukeЇs Graduate School on my case, in which Associate Dean David F. Bell disregarded my complaints and backed up the History Department to discontinue my studies at Duke. Here I would like to brief some facts for your information.

Sucheta MazumdarЇs misconducts include, but are not limited to:
1. enslaving me to work on her private arrangements which were neither the required TA/RA work by the History Department, nor the project work I was committed to; actually, I was driven to work as her TA/RA/private secretary;
2. disregarding my academic freedom per school policy, e.g. she changed my research project three times at will without even discussing with me beforehand;
3. lacking professional/supportive advising, e.g. she required that I took a course in my first semester which was designed for those senior graduate students proceeding for their thesis writing, and that I took many basic courses of Chinese general history despite that I had studied Chinese history with excellent academic performance in Chinese universities;
4. manipulating the relationship by unequal power between us. With our increasing tension in my fourth semester, she punished me through putting obstacles in the way of my trying to finish my final papers for other courses, e.g. she required that I must submit to her the outlines of my other course papers for her approval before I could proceed, and that I must submit to her a movie review each week which was nothing relevant to my program study;
5. violating DukeЇs Harassment Policy at the most severe extent, e.g. after I told her I was overloaded, she declared that I had Premenstrual Syndrome and forced me to see a counseling psychologist. She further ordered me to write a 7-page self-criticism report in which I must list all my problems;
6. discriminating Chinese students and insulting Nankai University where I graduated, e.g. in the Email she sent to me on April 9, 2005, she wrote, Basically, I donЇt think any student from China, even one with a far stronger background than yours, and with far fewer writing problems can possibly take their prelims in the third year and pass; in late May of 2005, she asserted that I had no idea that compared to Nanda, or Beida, where I had students from, or Zhongda where I studied, Nankai training was so poor.

The injustice that DukeЇs History Department has done to me includes, but is not limited to:
1. failing to hold a proper investigation into my former advisorЇs misconducts;
2. making the statement that I have limited language proficiency and poor academic performance in spite of my GPA of 3.58, and that I lack ability to obtain research grant (contrary to such statement, I successfully won the grant from Asian Pacific Studies Institute for my doctoral research project in Feb. 2006)
3. imposing on me a 10-month probation with harsh terms, which turns out to be a strategy of the History Department to officially remove me out of Duke University in June 2006;
4. refusing a Chinese-American professor with whom I share the same academic interest to be my primary advisor while I tried to constitute my new advising committee;
5. failing to provide me with the least academic support after placing me on the probation;
6. trespassing on my rights of due process and discontinuing my program studies at Duke at the time when I was supposed to depart for China on a research trip.

The injustice that DukeЇs Graduate School has done to me includes:
1. failing to hold a full investigation into my former advisorЇs misconducts as well as the injustice done by the History Department;
2. glossing over all the key issues I filed in my two complaints and backing up unjust decisions of the History Department.

Therefore, I appeal to you to initiate a thorough and proper investigation into Sucheta MazumdarЇs misconducts as well as the injustice both the History Department and the Graduate School have done to me. In the meantime, I should be immediately granted a masterЇs degree for my three-year work at Duke University. It is every Duke student including international studentЇs right to live and work in a safe and friendly environment free of humiliation and discrimination; it is also every studentЇs right to receive professional academic training and embrace our deep belief in academic freedom. I am looking forward to your investigation results.