Former clinical psych PhD student suing Idaho State University

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LOL. She doesn't trust psychologists... except the ones she hired as expert witnesses, of course.

Does it seem a little odd to anyone else that the wife is leading the charge here? If my spouse took to whining on HuffPo on my behalf, I would be displeased, to put it mildly.
 
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Interesting that they started their move to China in 10/2013.

Interesting that a legal team charging 40k/month wouldn't advise their clients to not talk to the public, especially about claiming damages in a manner inconsistent to the law. Hell, the wife's blog is overall... Interesting.

Interesting that the Discrimination claim is based upon the protected class of national origin, but the only thing anyone is talking about is the plaintiffs language skills, which is legally different.
 
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On her own blog in the comments section she has gotten quite a bit of "positive feedback" to post this on other forums (especially forums specific to the Asian community) and spread the word. One of the commenters specifically asked is they (Jun and His wife) considered asking ACLU to represent them. Her response was if ACLU became involved they would "lose" their current legal team. Kinda adds to the "interesting factor," IMO.

Thanks to those who answered my earlier questions. I looked at ISU handbook and also looked at my former program's handbook and did not see anything written about how the department would handle a student who was dismissed from the internship. ISU handbook does state that non-APPIC internships are allowed but require prior approval by department and the training agreement must adhere to APPIC standards as reviewed by an outside consultant. I am not sure if these policies were in place when Jun attended or added after the fact.
 
A six day jury trial??!! That seems excessive.
 
Isn't that his wife's website?

I found this page:
Jun Yu v. Idaho State University - Fact Sheet

I haven't read the documents directly, but the quotes she pulls from the depositions and other evidence seems to be oddly phrased and others are just weird.

“The university has the obligation and responsibility to award Mr. Yu a Ph.D. in general psychology at a minimum. Mr. Yu successfully completed all doctoral level program requirements of the Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, including successful defense of a doctoral dissertation, with the sole exception of successful completion of internship.” – Expert report of Dr. Shannon Chavez-Korell, page 7
http://www.speakingofchina.com/wp-c...r.-Shannon-Chavez-Korell_redacted.pdf#page=14

Is this a thing? The university can award someone a doctorate in "general psychology" even if they don't actually complete the requirements of their specific program?
 
Is this a thing? The university can award someone a doctorate in "general psychology" even if they don't actually complete the requirements of their specific program?
I've heard about such practices. Obviously, very rare circumstances. Mostly I've heard it for students that decided that the practice-orientated degree would not be necessary for their career, so why waste a year on internship.
 
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I've heard about such practices. Obviously, very rare circumstances. Mostly I've heard it for students that decided that the practice-orientated degree would not be necessary for their career, so why waste a year on internship.
Hmm, interesting. This whole case is super weird and we really only hear information from one side, because the student's wife is so active in pursuing his case on the internet.
 
Docket 32-6 , Yu’s complaint to Idaho Human Rights Commission alleging racial discrimination has additional details. By the time he applied to internship he has less than 100 hours each of assessment and intervention hours and received 4 interviews during phase 1. In phase 2 he received 1 interview and ultimately did not match. Additionally there is information on concerns about his language impact on rapport building and responding to client needs or something? I can’t remember exact wording.

The big lawsuit had 17 claims dismissed against the university so the main issue is he claims the university violated the civil rights act due to his race and national origin. Wonder how long before trial documents get posted.
 
I've heard about such practices. Obviously, very rare circumstances. Mostly I've heard it for students that decided that the practice-orientated degree would not be necessary for their career, so why waste a year on internship.

I know a couple people who did this. One is working as a consultant and the other is in industry.
 
The Oscars are not as exciting to me this year, so I’ve been reading some of the documents posted on the website. Seems that Yu filed complaints with Idaho HRC, state psych boards in ID and OH claiming his supervisors violated ethics code, filed a 700+(!) complaint with APA COA and then the federal lawsuit. Much more information provided in the exhibits posted than the initial article from the first post. Wonder if the wife will post the trial outcome (bench trial, not a jury)... whether it is in his favor or not.
 
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I'm still flabbergasted that he applied to internship with less than 200 face-to-face clinical hours. How did he think he would match to any sites like that? What was he doing with his time in the program?

From the documents, does it appear that the faculty at his program realized he had so few hours?
 
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I'm still flabbergasted that he applied to internship with less than 200 face-to-face clinical hours. How did he think he would match to any sites like that? What was he doing with his time in the program?

From the documents, does it appear that the faculty at his program realized he had so few hours?
One of the documents I read stated the faculty were aware of his low hours and had concerns. The approved him to apply for internship with the stipulation that he apply to sites where his Chinese language would be considered an asset as they felt he might do better in his native language. But he only applied to 2 sites (out of 14) that met that criteria. The exhibits in Docket 105 have many many details not provided in the initial article. The externship he was dismissed from was at a psych hospital to do testing and he had difficulty in many areas. There are the student evaluations from each semester, indicating where he was below expectations. He attempted his proposed internship in Cleveland and by the first week his supervisor had concerns about his ability to complete tasks. There appear to be some areas that ISU could have done better, or maybe need to revise policies, but there is also information that Yu lacked self-awareness of his limitations and needed more training before going on internship. Interesting case all around.
 
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One of the documents I read stated the faculty were aware of his low hours and had concerns. The approved him to apply for internship with the stipulation that he apply to sites where his Chinese language would be considered an asset as they felt he might do better in his native language. But he only applied to 2 sites (out of 14) that met that criteria. The exhibits in Docket 105 have many many details not provided in the initial article. The externship he was dismissed from was at a psych hospital to do testing and he had difficulty in many areas. There are the student evaluations from each semester, indicating where he was below expectations. He attempted his proposed internship in Cleveland and by the first week his supervisor had concerns about his ability to complete tasks. There appear to be some areas that ISU could have done better, or maybe need to revise policies, but there is also information that Yu lacked self-awareness of his limitations and needed more training before going on internship. Interesting case all around.
Hmm, that's even more interesting. I'm sympathetic to the argument that everyone has blind spots and trainees don't necessary know where their deficiencies lie without guidance, but it seems like the program did inform him of at least some of their concerns and some other things are quite manifestly obvious as a graduate student (e.g., F2F hours accrued and any insufficiency therein).
 
Bench trial completed, closing arguments posted, just waiting for judge’s decision. :pompous:

 
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Bench trial completed, closing arguments posted, just waiting for judge’s decision. :pompous:

seems like a pretty open and shut case. Student was warned numerous times during practicum of problems. He was provided remediation plans and was dismissed from every external clinical position. Hope the judge doesn't **** this one up.
 
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seems like a pretty open and shut case. Student was warned numerous times during practicum of problems. He was provided remediation plans and was dismissed from every external clinical position. Hope the judge doesn't **** this one up.
Yeah, the plaintiff's case seems pretty weak and relies on some fairly disingenuous readings of comments made by his supervisors.

E.g.,
Nevertheless, Dr. Lynch wrote the following in her letter to Mr. Yu denying his appeal from dismissal from the doctoral program in clinical psychology: “Most importantly, your demonstrated failure at the Cleveland Clinic provided explicit evidence that your lack of satisfactory progress is not the result of a linguistic problem alone.” See the second page, Argument 3 of Defendant’s Exhibit 536 (Emphasis added). Based on the evidence presented at trial and the plain language of Defendant’s Exhibit 536, there is no doubt that Mr. Yu’s accent Case 4:15-cv-00430-REB Document 177 Filed 03/25/19 Page 9 of 26 PLAINTIFF JUN YU’S CLOSING ARGUMENT Page 5 of 20 and/or speech pattern played a motivating part in Mr. Yu’s dismissal from ISU. Therefore, Mr. Yu has established by direct evidence that he was the victim of national origin discrimination.

If you look at the defendants' side, his issues apart from "linguistic problems" were poor rapport-building with client, failure to notice and respond to client non-verbal cues, and being unreceptive to direct feedback from his supervisors. One practicum supervisor didn't feel confident to even let him administer psychometric tests and measures after observing him with patients and providing corrective feedback. The hospital also received patient complaints about him.

One of the plaintiffs main arguments is that his dismissal from the program was abrupt and capricious after his dismissal from his internship, and he was given no opportunity for remediation. The problem with this argument is that he failed to match for an internship, so the internship he attended was one of his own creation, which included an acknowledgement that it lacked remediation and other components of other formal internship sites.
 
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I was just thinking about this case and the end results. After some googling:


Apparently, he tried to appeal and it was all dismissed. I can't find a document about the decision of the bench trial but I am guessing it went for Idaho State.
 
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From the Div. 17 listserv. It isn't over yet.
At least now we have a list of people that don’t know what they are agreeing to sign. Sad to see Norcross on that list.

More importantly, we also have the names of folks that would seem to maybe earn some money if the case is won.

I hope the APA doesn’t insert itself into this situation. It would be another mistake on their part. And, this is a poor reflection of Div 17, to me.
 
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From the Div. 17 listserv. It isn't over yet.

Im confused:

Since it’s completely legal to discriminate based on anything that is not a protected class, and since grading/admissions is literally a discriminatory process:

Are the signatories unaware of the (Legal) standards of the area in which they are offering an opinion? If so, how do they reconcile that with APA ethics?

Are the signatories creating some new definition of discrimination, where it is okay to discriminate based upon language abilities on admissions, the GRE, testing, oral exams, etc, but just not at another point?
 
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It would seem that blindly putting your name on something these days is the only way to be woke. This came up on our listserv. It was very clear that everyone who was sharing it, had read anything about this case.
 
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It would seem that blindly putting your name on something these days is the only way to be woke. This came up on our listserv. It was very clear that everyone who was sharing it, had read anything about this case.
Do you mean "no one who was sharing it"?
 
It would seem that blindly putting your name on something these days is the only way to be woke. This came up on our listserv. It was very clear that everyone who was sharing it, had read anything about this case.
I don't doubt that at all. There's no way anyone who has read the facts of the case can side with the student or believe that this is a matter of discrimination or bias. Moreover, his demands in the original trial are absolutely absurd.
 
I don't doubt that at all. There's no way anyone who has read the facts of the case can side with the student or believe that this is a matter of discrimination or bias. Moreover, his demands in the original trial are absolutely absurd.
I suspect that the reason for so many signing is in the framing of the objection and not the underlying case. For the D17 letter above it talks about how psychologist expert testimony was dismissed "out of hand" and not considered. I assume that got a lot of people to sign on, regardless of the case and regardless of if that was an accurate representation of events/rationale of the Judge (I have no idea frankly).
 
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APA refused to sign on as an amicus curiae. A new hearing date has been set for his appeal. The case has been rebranded.
 
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APA refused to sign on as an amicus curiae. A new hearing date has been set for his appeal. The case has been rebranded.
That's just gross.
 
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Would love to read the initial final judgment and ruling in the case from last year. The wife took down her website awhile back and along with it went the legal documents and affidavits that had been uploaded. Oh well.
 
I just read the court document. The judge was quite unimpressed by the testimony of Dr. Zorwick. His (the judge's) criticisms of the logical flaws in Zorwick's argument reminded me of the discussion on the recent "Defining Violence" thread regarding the problems of an overly inclusive definition (in this case, "aversive racism").
 
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I just read the court document. The judge was quite unimpressed by the testimony of Dr. Zorwick. His (the judge's) criticisms of the logical flaws in Zorwick's argument reminded me of the discussion on the recent "Defining Violence" thread regarding the problems of an overly inclusive definition (in this case, "aversive racism").

"As to Dr. Zorwick's criticism of Dr. Robert's recommendation letter as a hallmark piece of ambiguity indicating aversive racism, the Court finds no credibility whatsoever. Dr. Zorwick either missed or overlooked the fact that after Dr. Roberts wrote Yu's letter of recommendation in support of his APPIC application in October 2011 and before ISU dismissed Yu from the doctoral program in May 2013, Yu had multiple clinical psychologists tell the University that Yu was not competent to work in their clinics - one of whom said expressly that Yu was a potential danger to any clinical patients with whom he might work - all of which also led to Yu's dismissal from two separate clinical placements.

Dr. Zorwick's testimony that these two events are an example of ambiguity that constitutes aversive racism is not credible. Rather, it is incredulous to such a degree that it impairs the entirety of her testimony"

Yikes.
 
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I just read the court document. The judge was quite unimpressed by the testimony of Dr. Zorwick. His (the judge's) criticisms of the logical flaws in Zorwick's argument reminded me of the discussion on the recent "Defining Violence" thread regarding the problems of an overly inclusive definition (in this case, "aversive racism").

Wow, it just gets so much worse the more you read.
 
"As to Dr. Zorwick's criticism of Dr. Robert's recommendation letter as a hallmark piece of ambiguity indicating aversive racism, the Court finds no credibility whatsoever. Dr. Zorwick either missed or overlooked the fact that after Dr. Roberts wrote Yu's letter of recommendation in support of his APPIC application in October 2011 and before ISU dismissed Yu from the doctoral program in May 2013, Yu had multiple clinical psychologists tell the University that Yu was not competent to work in their clinics - one of whom said expressly that Yu was a potential danger to any clinical patients with whom he might work - all of which also led to Yu's dismissal from two separate clinical placements.

Dr. Zorwick's testimony that these two events are an example of ambiguity that constitutes aversive racism is not credible. Rather, it is incredulous to such a degree that it impairs the entirety of her testimony"

Yikes.
He calls her out multiple times for the logical fallacy of "affirming the consequent." In summary, her argument is that aversive racism can lead to unfair dismissal of an ethnic/racial/cultural/linguistical minority student, and thus any dismissal of such a student is therefore the result of aversion racism. As someone who believes that this type of discrimination does occur, I'm bothered by this faulty logic, as I think it distracts from some of the reality of the issue.
 
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He calls her out multiple times for the logical fallacy of "affirming the consequent." In summary, her argument is that aversive racism can lead to unfair dismissal of an ethnic/racial/cultural/linguistical minority student, and thus any dismissal of such a student is therefore the result of aversion racism. As someone who believes that this type of discrimination does occur, I'm bothered by this faulty logic, as I think it distracts from some of the reality of the issue.

Yeah, some of this is pretty cringeworthy. Wonder just how much damage she did to the overall case
 
I like his response to Koocher, too. Basically "yeah, that could all be true, but it's in no way related to a violation of title VI." In effect " you've wasted everyone's time"

Seems like a good example of how the real courts differ from the courts of public opinion.
 
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Also how it differs from the court of "expert" opinion. I think there's some merit to Koocher's position that ISU did a lot of stuff wrong and could've avoided the situation. However, that was not the issue at hand in this trial. Judge's don't mess around. I wonder how the outcome would've differed if it were a jury trial.
 
Thanks for the link. I read through all of it last night. I remember some folks on this thread early on being concerned that the judge would side with Yu and not understand training in clinical psych but it appears the judge demonstrated his understanding of the role of faculty and supervisor in being “gatekeeper” to the general public. Maybe that was from the evidence presented by ISU or maybe he did his own research. Unfortunate that Yu and his supporters continue to push this story he was discriminated against even after the judge told him it would be a bitter pill to swallow. I can’t imagine spending 9 years fighting for something that is very unlikely to occur. The court’s observation of Yu during the trial was also interesting to read.
 
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Read through a good chunk of it. It’s a good reminder of the differences between the law and psychology. The argument that people engage in unintentional bias is helpful to our practice of psychology but incompatible with the court’s need to determine intent.
 
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How did this person afford to bring so many expert witnesses. Are they a Chinese billionaire or relation? Honestly, the dude sounds like a nightmare. The autism clinic one really bothers me. They were trying to help a dude out, and he thanks them by bringing them to court. I sure hope the internship supervisors had good self care during the stress of a trial.
 
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How did this person afford to bring so many expert witnesses. Are they a Chinese billionaire or relation? Honestly, the dude sounds like a nightmare. The autism clinic one really bothers me. They were trying to help a dude out, and he thanks them by bringing them to court. I sure hope the internship supervisors had good self care during the stress of a trial.

I'd bet some of those witnesses were doing it pro bono.
 
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The court’s observation of Yu during the trial was also interesting to read.
You talking about this: "Yu's testimony and in the testimony of the professors and clinical psychologists who worked with Yu, revealed someone who didn't want to hear that there were any shortcomings in his work. Put bluntly, the Court's objective assessment of the evidence on such matters led to a conclusion that Yu's response was more often a stubborn denial of any shortcomings, apparently from a lack of self-awareness and self-reflection. Hence, the Court was not surprised to hear from Dr. Lynch that in all her years of teaching, she had never felt such disrespect from a student as she did from Yu."
 
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yikes
 
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Well that’s one section. The others:
“:87. The Court heard and observed Yu in his testimony for multiple hours during the trial. The Court observed Yu in the courtroom while other witnesses were testifying. Accordingly, the Court developed a good sense for his credibility as a witness. He was generally credible when discussing simple matters of background facts or historical events, although in a number of instances the questions (from both ISU counsel as well as Yu's own counsel) had to be repeated multiple times before Yu understood the question posed to him in English so that he was able to answer. Yu's speech was reasonably clear and understandable, but with occasional quirks. He frequently paused for significant periods at the beginning or even in the middle of answering a question. Sometimes his answers were non-responsive to the question posed and it was difficult to tell whether Yu misunderstood the question or was intentionally being evasive. Either way, his credibility was diminished somewhat by such responses.”

And:
“89. Yu also testified at times as if he were reading from a script. When asked why he thought he was dismissed from the CCCA internship, he responded not with his understanding of Dr. Speer's reasons - after all, she had made the decision - for dismissing him, he instead answered that he was treated unfairly. Trial Tr. vol. 1, 103:18-20, 104:13-17. His initial answer about Dr. Landers's dismissal of him from the EIRMC externship was the same: "My understanding is he treated me unfairly." Trial Tr. vol. 1, 106:25-107:4. Perhaps Yu genuinely believed he was treated unfairly, but here again the Court perceived a lack of self-awareness about the genuineness of the concerns expressed by both Dr. Landers and Dr. Speer. Such a lack of self-awareness reflected in his trial testimony is highly relevant because it also mirrored the feedback from other of his clinical supervisors. Yu seemed to be unaware of, or unconcerned with, the need to do more than to say he'd been treated unfairly in order to rebut the concerns raised by his clinical supervisors.”
 
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Wow.

What is the cliff notes version of why he was dismissed from the two clinical placements / considered a danger to patients?
Dude couldn't speak english good enough to build rapport. Was a danger in an inpatient adult setting (internship #1) because he just wasn't able to communicate. Internship #2 was an autism placement and the dude couldn't give a good test, etc. When they brought up concerns to him, he'd just ignore them or didn't comprehend.
 
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