In an about-face, the education minister announced Friday that the investigation into alleged favoritism that benefited a school chain run by a close friend of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would be reopened.
A flurry of media reports this week quoting insiders who backed the authenticity of the leaked documents at the center of the scandal appears to have forced the Cabinet's hand by generating a public outcry against the government.
The alleged documents, in the form of email attachments, suggest that education officials swayed the approval process for a new veterinary department at a university owned by Kake Gakuen, which is chaired by Abe's close friend Kotaro Kake.