International student at Willamette law school alleges she was expelled due to disability discrimination

Charlie Li recalls an exciting arrival on Willamette University’s Salem campus.

“I still remember the first day when I had that Presidential Scholarship dinner,” Li said, thinking back to a conversation she had with the law school dean about why she wanted to be an attorney. “We talked about race and gender — the inequalities in the current societies, the American Bar Association.”

That Presidential Scholarship, covering full tuition at Willamette University’s College of Law, was a big reason Li chose to study at the private university after she earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Oregon. Law school was the first big step toward her goal of becoming an attorney and advocating for people from marginalized communities, like herself.

“As a minority, as a female, I wanted to be a voice for people like me,” Li said. “I want to fight for justice.”

Li is an international student with disabilities. She is from Asia but has requested to withhold the name of her country of origin, due to privacy and safety concerns. For the same reasons, she’s using a nickname she uses with friends and on social media, rather than her legal first name.

She has cardiovascular and gastrointestinal conditions including severe bradycardia and gastroparesis. Some of her conditions are potentially life-threatening and require Li to have a central line — an intravenous tube in her chest through which she gets infusions to manage her blood pressure — and a feeding tube through her abdomen.

Li provided OPB with after-visit summaries, doctors’ notes and diagnoses, many of which were dated during her time at Willamette.

Late last year, Willamette’s College of Law dismissed Li after concluding she violated the institution’s honor code and threatened a classmate. Li denies that.

“It’s just been really hard, and now I have to be in this situation that I just struggle to be alive,” she said.

It took 14 weeks for Li to go from the excitement of starting law classes at Oregon’s oldest university to being thrown out by an opaque college committee. Li’s rapid fall — from a budding Presidential Scholar to an uprooted former student — points to difficulties faced by students with complex needs when they confront established norms at longstanding Oregon institutions. Li faced cultural and linguistic challenges as an international student and dealt with barriers as a person with disabilities. An OPB investigation suggests Li was met with suspicion and discipline when she sought help.

Li spent the first few weeks of her first semester at the law school butting up against unfamiliar processes and people. Her adjustment felt especially difficult as an international student whose first language is not English at a primarily white private institution.

Li says she felt like she was not receiving the support she needed and was sometimes actively discriminated against.

OPB reached out to Willamette University multiple times about Li’s situation. Rather than making administrators available for interviews, Willamette responded in writing through a public relations firm. In a written statement, the university said it does not dismiss students on the basis of their disability status.

Li’s dismissal resulted in the termination of her student visa, meaning she’s now facing deportation. It also caused Li to lose her health insurance, raising questions about how she will pay her medical bills.

Li can’t get state health insurance because she’s not a U.S. citizen and does not have qualifying residency statuses, such as a Green Card or refugee status. In the past few months, she’s been paying out-of-pocket for medical care — mostly using money from a GoFundMe campaign. She’s also received donations from supporters online for IV infusion bags and other medical supplies.

“I don’t want this kind of thing to ever happen to another student. It doesn’t matter if they’re international or not,” Li said. “I think what happened to me was really ridiculous.”

Conflicting accounts of law class confrontation lead to Willamette investigation

Li’s issues at Willamette University’s College of Law began at the start of her first semester, late last summer.

A few weeks into the term, Li said, she was bullied by one of her new classmates.

Li said one day the classmate moved past her and almost knocked her over. She said the same student also sat in the seat Li had chosen as her assigned spot and stared at Li in a way she thought was disrespectful. Li emailed the classmate but got no response.

The next day in class, Li said, the student threw an attendance sheet in her face.

“After the class was over, I walked up to [them] and I was like, ‘Hey, I think we need to talk,’ and [the classmate] was like, ‘No, I’m not talking,’” Li recalled.

Li said she told the student: “‘OK, it’s OK if you don’t want to talk to me, but I need to let you know that what you did in class, what you did to me, that wasn’t OK,’ and I was like, ‘I want to let you know that if you’re going to do that again, that I will do the same thing back — I’ll slam those papers back to you.’”

The classmate reported Li to the school, through its Student Affairs Department, alleging that Li had threatened to slap them in the face.

“I am not physically capable of doing such a thing,” Li told OPB. “My condition left me really exhausted for most of the time. I mean, I’m dealing with pain, like severe pain like every single day.”

Details of the allegations against Li come from reports of two Willamette investigations — one through the university’s student affairs department and one by a committee at the College of Law. Li provided the investigative documents to OPB, and while Willamette officials declined to provide records to OPB, the university was made aware of the specific documents OPB was using and did not question their veracity.

The university barred Li from attending her classes after the student’s report, and it began an investigation in September. Willamette’s Student Code of Conduct allows the school to suspend a student during a conduct review process if needed to “help protect an individual or the University community, property or the normal operations of the University.”

Willamette’s investigation took eight weeks. Over that time, Li wasn’t allowed to attend her classes in person, but the school provided recordings. She was also in and out of the hospital with issues related to her gastrointestinal conditions.

The investigation concluded that Li did threaten to slap the other student, based on the word of the student who made the allegation and one other.

Li insists she didn’t make such a threat, and she says other students in the class heard her refer to slamming the attendance papers, not slapping her classmate. But those students declined to take part in the investigation.

“At least two other students saw it, but for some reason, they refused to testify, but I cannot push them,” Li said.

Li had filed her own report against her accuser at the time of the law class incident, claiming that the classmate was acting toward her in a discriminatory way due to her race and disabilities. The university found that complaint unsubstantiated.

After Willamette concluded its investigation into Li, it placed her on “conduct probation,” meaning that if she had any future violations, she could face serious consequences. The university also gave Li and the other student no-contact orders with each other.

But sanctions from the university administration were only the beginning for Li. A committee at Willamette’s College of Law would follow up with its own investigation and an even heftier penalty.