A Nigerian-born graduate student who failed his doctoral qualifying exam three times has lost a lawsuit accusing Golden Gate University of discrimination and other claims.
U.S. District Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd of San Jose, California, ruled that the university had valid, nondiscriminatory reasons to flunk John Nkwuo and dismiss him from its Doctor of Business Administration program.
Nkwuo enrolled in August 2010 and failed the anonymously graded written qualifying exam in 2011 and 2013, according to the decision.
Under the DBA program manual, a second failure results in automatic dismissal, but Golden Gate gave Nkwuo a third opportunity by letting him take an oral exam. He failed that too in 2013, leading to his dismissal.
An administrative appeal was unsuccessful.
In his decision, Lloyd said the race discrimination allegations fell short under both Title VI and the state civil rights law. He noted, for example, that five out of six African-American students in the program had passed the qualifying exam since 2010. Among all students, 33 of 41 passed the test.
Lloyd found no direct or indirect evidence of discrimination and noted that Nkwuo had testified that no faculty member ever mentioned his race.
