<p>I wanted to get some advice with how universities deal with academic integrity. Last year a student was caught cheating and there was clear evidence of his cheating in an email form. Two university Judicial deans informed that the student will be suspended for a year since there was such a clear evidence: He skipped probation stages since the evidence was obvious. However, the following year, the same student was shown on campus and after a group of students asked the judicial dean’s office for explanation they were not given any information. </p>
<p>I often hear professors say “I wish I could give you all A grades, but then parents will call me that they’ll sue me.” I’m wondering if that is true or not, but anyhow, what is the next step when university refuses to punish students that the judicial dean said(yes already said) the student who violated the rules will be suspended?</p>
<p>The student may have appealed the decision or his/her case may have changed. In any case, federal laws often prohibit universities from disclosing information in other student’s records (both academic and disciplinary) which you or other students who have not been given permission by the person in question should have no business inquiring about anyway. </p>
<p>In any case, from what you’ve described it sounds like normal procedure at the university is to place students on probation and that suspension is usually a punishment stage that occurs after progressively harsher earlier stages of probation generally after repeat offenses. It may be that in this case, the university determined that no matter how “clear” the evidence was, normal procedures must be followed and the student was merely on probation. Or maybe the Dean of Judicial Affairs spoke too hastily. Or maybe evidence wasn’t as “clear” as it appeared. I am uneasy at the prospect that students, without access to the details of the case, are making judgment calls on what the appropriate level of severity of the punishment should be and are potentially considering harassing another student through bureaucratic mechanisms for the perceived failure of the university to meet those expectations.</p>
<p>I’d say you probably are one of those students who cheat? Academic integrity is taken very seriously in most schools and most other schools consider these cases seriously if you have not noticed. </p>
<p>Other competent students may have lost his or her chance of getting into the school they wanted to because of people who cheat. In other countries, if there is clear evidence like this case, students get expelled from school without suspension.</p>
<p>I never said academic integrity is not to be taken seriously. As someone who earned every single point that I’ve ever gotten on an exam, homework, lab report, quiz, or presentation I am well aware of the importance of being honest and fair. </p>
<p>And no matter what “clear evidence” there may be, the proper procedures must be followed where the student goes to school. I don’t give a flying hoot what they do in “other countries”. You know what else they do in “other countries”? Female genital mutilation for adultery, beheadings for being an “infidel”, honor killings for being a rape victim, and cutting off hands for being a thief. Yeah, thank God this is the USA where we have some semblance of a due process and perhaps even the rule of law! AMAZING. </p>
<p>If wanting to follow the proper procedures is being unethical, then I really don’t want to live under whatever passes for a model of ethics and morality in your warped reality.</p>