A former UCLA cytogenetics research fellow who was born in Taiwan and alleges he was denied a chance to complete a two-year program because of his ethnic background testified Thursday that his 2015 termination letter left him "nauseated."
"I felt like somebody punched me in the stomach," Daniel Chen told a Los Angeles Superior Court jury hearing trial of his lawsuit against the Regents of the University of California and his first trainer, Jennifer Pelkey. Chen said it was rare for a person to be released before the completion of their fellowship.
"You're perceived as damaged goods in the job market," said Chen, who said the June 2015 termination email from his training program director, Dr. Fabiola Quintero-Rivera, left him feeling "nauseated."
Lawyer Stephen Ronk, on behalf of the regents, said the environment where Chen worked is racially diverse and includes a large percentage of Asians. Chen was not allowed to continue for a second year in the fellowship because of mistakes, including getting a patient's gender wrong on a chromosomal analysis, Ronk said.
Cytogenesis is the formation, development and variation of cells. Chen attended Stanford University, UCLA and the UC Irvine School of Medicine. He said he sought a medical degree after first receiving his doctoral degree because he wanted the additional opportunity to do cancer research in a clinical setting.
Chen said he was accepted into a two-year UCLA post-doctoral fellowship in 2014 to train and become board-certified in cytogenetics by the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics.
He said Pelkey was unfriendly to him from the start, often claiming she was too busy to talk to him. Pelkey's demeanor toward became increasingly hostile as she posed such questions to him as whether he had had a stroke or a brain infarct, Chen said.
"I perceived it as harassment and a personal attack on me," Chen said.
Pelkey also questioned his ability to speak English clearly, said Chen, who was born in Taiwan and whose first language is Mandarin.
"I felt very embarrassed, I have been in education for a long time, I try to speak as normal as any other person," he said.
Chen's attorney, Patricio Barrera, showed jurors a copy of an evaluation letter in which Pelkey called Chen "the least capable person" she ever trained.
"I was really shocked to see this," Chen said. "This was completely out of the norm."
Chen later was given a different training supervisor, Wendy Wei, but Pelkey allegedly continued her criticism of the doctor, questioned his ability to do his work and complained about the plaintiff engaging in conversations with other doctors and staff of Chinese descent in Mandarin.
Chen said he could see his future was in doubt, so he consulted an attorney. He said the lawyer wrote his client's supervisors in April 2015 and said Chen was a victim of discrimination due to his ethnicity and because his first language was Mandarin. The letter and a followup correspondence the next month were ignored by UCLA, Chen testified.
Chen said he stayed on the job and that Quintero-Rivera actually increased his workload. However, in late May 2015 she accused him of taking an unauthorized vacation, Chen said.
Chen said he became increasingly worried about whether he would be able to continue with his fellowship and meet his career goals.
"I was actually very anxious about my situation," Chen said. "I became very nervous and scared."
Chen said he also experienced headaches, hypertension and insomnia. Although Chen now works for a private genetics company in Orange County, he is unable to do research or teach, Barrera said. He also was unemployed for seven months, according to Barrera.
Chen filed his lawsuit four months after his fellowship was terminated. He said he has been unable to get fellowships elsewhere because universities question why he did not finish the one at UCLA.
