Breach of Trust at Tokyo Women’s Medical Univ.: Why Was The Chancellor Allowed to Act Arbitrarily?

Editorial

15:17 JST, January 16, 2025

It is outrageous if a university chancellor, entrusted with restructuring management of her university, was seeking to benefit herself amid severe cost-cutting measures. It is hoped that the police will thoroughly investigate the allegations that she was illicitly amassing wealth.

The Metropolitan Police Department has arrested Kinuko Iwamoto, a former chancellor of Tokyo Women’s Medical University, on suspicion of breach of trust in connection with the construction of new school buildings.

Iwamoto is suspected of having the university illicitly pay out a little over ¥100 million, under the guise of remuneration, to an architect who had no actual duties, when she was vice chancellor and chancellor from 2018 to 2020, thereby causing damage to the university.

The MPD believes that ¥37 million of this sum was given in kickbacks to Iwamoto, who used the money to purchase brand-name items and for other purposes. Cash worth ¥200 million and gold bullion also worth ¥200 million were seized from her home and other locations.

The university receives government subsidies set aside for private schools. The flow of illicit funds needs to be clarified.

Iwamoto, a member of the founding family of the university and a graduate of the school, became vice chancellor in 2014. At the time, the university’s finances were deteriorating due to an accident involving the administration of a large dose of sedative at an affiliated hospital, and she was responsible for restructuring management of the university.

Iwamoto got the university’s finances into the black through such means as cutting faculty and staff costs, and she became chancellor in 2019. However, her prioritizing of these cost-cutting measures invited backlash from doctors and others, leading to a number of them leaving the university. In spring last year, the university was searched by the police over allegations, involving the university’s alumni association, that a salary had been improperly paid out.

The university’s third-party committee pointed to Iwamoto’s “dominance” and her obsession with money as the background of the school’s many problems.

Other executives failed to rein in the chancellor’s out-of-control actions. As a result, the hospital is losing more patients, and the university’s management has been in a critical situation.

Although these executives may have been unable to raise objections for fear of retaliation from Iwamoto, who had sole authority over personnel and accounting matters, they cannot evade responsibility for their role in management.

The university has dismissed Iwamoto from her position as chancellor and announced a plan for improvement that includes strengthening checks on expenditures. Steady implementation of the plan would be the first step toward regaining trust.

As the only university in Japan that provides medical education exclusively for women, Tokyo Women’s Medical University has sent many female doctors into society and contributed to advanced medical service and community medicine. It must not be forgotten that it is the patients who are the victims of the university’s disarray.

In recent years, private universities have seen a spate of scandals involving their chairpersons and others. The revised Private Schools Law, which aims to strengthen governance functions, will come into effect in April this year. It is hoped that each university will examine its operations to ensure that management has not been lax.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Jan. 16, 2025)