Photo/Illutration Juntendo University in Tokyo’s Bunkyo Ward (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The Tokyo District Court has ordered a medical school in the capital to pay compensation for rejecting the admission of an applicant in his early 30s due to his age.

In awarding the plaintiff about 1.81 million yen ($12,500), the court said in its Aug. 10 ruling that it was illegal for Juntendo University to put applicants at a disadvantage due to their age or the number of times they have taken the entrance exam.

According to the ruling, the plaintiff was 32 when he took the Juntendo medical school entrance exam after working for a few years.

Juntendo has standards that place applicants who have taken the entrance exam more than once at a disadvantage. Applicants who worked before taking the exam are considered to be similar to those who have taken the test a number of times.

The court noted that the university did not include among the factors considered in its medical school recruitment notice the age of the applicant or the number of times the applicant had taken the entrance exam.

But using such undisclosed factors in passing or failing applicants damaged the hopes of the plaintiff when he applied for the entrance exam.

The court added that there was no rational reason for taking such measures that placed the plaintiff at a disadvantage and said the measures exceeded the discretion of the university and were therefore illegal.

In a separate case, the Tokyo District Court in May 2022 ordered Juntendo to pay a total of about 8.05 million yen to 13 women who took the entrance exam but were rejected due to what the court called discriminatory standards that treated female applicants unfairly.

The plaintiffs took the exam between fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2018. 

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