UC San Diego Agrees Not to Fire Chinese Postdoc Who Raised Concerns

The University of California, San Diego has reached a settlement with Li Jiang, a postdoctoral scholar from China who said her contract was left to expire after she raised concerns about data methodology in her lab, potentially forcing her to return to China as she neared the end of pregnancy.

The case sparked a wave of activism from her peers that culminated in an agreement reached last Friday. The settlement — negotiated by Jiang, UC San Diego, and the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) — will allow Jiang to stay in the country, continue working at UC San Diego in a different lab under a new supervisor, who is the chair of her department, and keep her health benefits.

In an email to NBC News, Jiang said that although she was grateful for the settlement and the support of her colleagues, her experience over the last few months has been “terrifying.”

“I feared many things — losing my job, losing my visa and having to leave the country, and also for my career in general,” she said. “And as soon as I knew I was pregnant, I feared for my child and our future. I tried to work out how I would travel back to China alone, with no income and no health coverage, and have a baby.”