Student sues university over grade

Student sues university over grade - Yahoo! News UK

Tuesday, September 21 12:12 pm
By Gaby Leslie


A student has launched a High Court challenge against his final university result after he received a 2:2 degree classification. Skip related content

Student sues university to court over grade

Queen's University graduate Andrew Croskery, from County Down in Northern Ireland, applied for a judicial review of the grade in one of the first court cases of its kind.

The court was told on Monday how the electrical engineering student could have ended up with a 2:1 degree instead if he had had better supervision.

Mr Croskery's barrister, Tony McGleenan, said he couldn't appeal against his classification because he had already graduated from Queen's this summer.

He also added that the university's stance was not compliant with his client's human rights.

He said: "It is obviously an important case for the applicant. He avers his employment prospects have been jeopardised . . . in this competitive job market.

"It's also clearly an important case for the university."

However Nicholas Hanna QC, for Queen's, argued that the judicial review application should be dismissed as the court was not the place to solve the matter.

The judge, Mr Justice Treacy, has adjourned the case and will determine whether the legal challenge can proceed next month.

 

The student has an uphill climb unless he has evidence that could prove negligence or fraud... Perhaps if he saved all the emails.

 

For anyone wondering what a 2:1 and 2:2 are:

British undergraduate degree classification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Has there been any expansion on the idea that this is a "human rights" violation? Is it a human right to be awarded excellent grades?

 

Suggestion: think consumer fraud. Is education fraud to be considered consumer fraud, which could be construed as a "human right"? I suppose everyone has a right to be protected fraudulent schemes even in the provision of educational services.

 

When my advisor decided mid-semester that he was no longer my advisor, I was hung out to dry. I had and provided all my saved emails. The ombudsman carefully selected what he deemed necessary, ignored the rest, and found for the professor.

 

I don't know the details of your case, so I can't really comment. Were you doing what you your advisor asked within the framework of University policy?

 

Short answer, yes. I had a 3.8 gpa and later published (peer-reviewed) the Capstone project without any advisor assistance, but no degree. The semester he quit mid-term was my Capstone semester so most course work was complete. It doesn't make sense and made even less sense while it was happening to me. I feel for the student but doubt he has much of a chance, even if he is 100% in the right, and I don't know that he is. At least in the US, it doesn't seem any laws were broken, at least not any that anyone considered worth enforcing.

 

The school is not interested in such news.
Even if the student has uphill battle, the negative news most likely encouraged the school leadership and the professors to be more careful in grading.

Maybe this case will better serve the students, maybe temporary.

 

I would argue that a student is not a consumer of services or a customer. He is a product, manufactured item whose quality is directly correlated to the inputs, one of which is the student's effort. Otherwise grades have no merit as a factor of education at all. Service = pay for diploma or pay for grades.

This whole student as consumer bulls**t has to stop if education is ever to retain any integrity.

 

I hear you... However, the reality is that students are consumers of educational services and consumer rights cannot be waived even under contract in most jurisdictions. Perhaps the student is a consumer at the beginning and when graduated they are product and a consumer. Could thinking in multiple dimensions work?

 

Hi Dave -

Thinking in multiple dimensions does work for the matter. I'm not disagreeing with your approach from the point of view you're approaching it from.

The context of the argument in this case is very, very important. As a consumer of a service, you are receiving something you can not do, or choose not to do for a payment to the service provider. In a conventional sense this is very clean, the service is provided or it isn't and in most cases the consumer has no obligation to be responsible for the result of the service at any point in time. The service is either completed or it isn't. (The rise of consumer rights law is directly tied to this uneven responsibility matrix. The consumer is vulnerable)

Within education it's cloudy. The student is not paying for his or her education or degree, he or she is paying for the right to attend a class; essentially it's a participating seat and grading fee.

It's the choice of the school to create programs that the student can complete. It's the responsibility of the student to provide the work that delivers the degree. They are providing themselves a service based on classes that will happen with or without any particular individual. (The consumer is not only responsible, he or she is empowered - taking consumer rights arguments off on a tangent)

This definition has to remain intact, otherwise students are paying for a degree and by association grades.

Any lawyer worth his salt is going to brutally destroy consumer rights suits against colleges unless those colleges are for-profit. Those schools will get what they have coming to them, because they're responsible for muddying the water in their own right and leaving themselves open to class action suits.

 

Just thinking out loud, does anybody think this is absurd?

For example, I need at least two A’s and two A-‘s this semester to graduate with High Distinction and this in jeopardy due to what I feel is a very rogue and elitist “visiting professor.” The class is a 001 course (I did an inverted degree, I finished all my 300/400 classes last semester) and the grading requirements are as strict if not more so than some of my high 400 level classes.

So if I end up with a B+ from this person I will graduate with Distinction and not High Distinction, am I entitled to sue the University? Do I sue the University for the B- and B+ I received in previous classes, or the A- in another?

Just reeks of entitlement to me, education is a privilege, not a guarantee.

Brez

 

If the educational services were provided fraudulently or negligently, there certainly could be a breach of contract and consumer laws, with the possibility of both civil and criminal outcomes.

Yes, instructors have to be given the latitude to grade papers as they see fit, but instructors are only one agent of the university; all the agents of the university are involved in a collective action to provide education, and all are theoretically able to provide either competent or negligent services, which are also either worthy due financial consideration or fraudulent.

For example, some of these large doctoral programs that accept everybody who will pay or that hold students forever with minimal justification are simply conspiracies to commit fraud involving multiple university agents, and the perpetrators would be hard-pressed to prove otherwise, especially with the pattern of hundreds of victims. Note that fraud is often criminal, so forget about lawsuits and start thinking about the district attorney and the FBI, etc.

I realize that educational institutions would like to have broad discretion in the provision of education, which is helpful, but there is no way for them to operate above the law.

 

Yes, I agree but is that what we're really discussing here?

Student sues university over grade.

Universities that have rigorous admissions standards mitigate risk.
Professors that have well-written syllabi acting as default contracts mitigate risk.
Administration that executes effectively in terms of admissions or finance mitigate risk.

Anyone can sue anyone, but the consumer argument in well-run academia holds no merit. If you want to sue the heck out of a for-profit with any of the above tenets in question, go for it, in fact, when I pass the bar, I'll gladly help pro bono.

 

To me, this would be a question of implied contract regarding services rendered.

The implied contract, even for non-profits, is: did said college provide education? If student attended said college and obtained passing grades (and was reasonably provided all necessary/relevant resources to do so), I believe it could be argued the college met its obligations regarding the contract. Anything over and above that (i.e. great grades), is solely the responsibility of the student.

You could argue negligence or incompetence in assessment of said student's grades, or some form of derogatory comment (e.g. libel) for awarding a poor grade. But then, there not only has to be significant evidence in favor of the student's assertions.

 

And anyone who believes that consumer protection laws don't apply to students should contact me. I would very much like to attend inevitable their trial and visit them in prison...

 

In the U.S. a case like this would end up in a federal court. The federal courts have given the higher educational system great latitude to conduct there mission as they see fit in the past and some twisted theory about consumer protection is not going to change that. The courts are not going to get involved in the minutiae of university operations unless there is some constitutional issue involved (discrimination, free speech, ADA accomodations issues, Title IX, etc.). Issues such as individual grades and program requirements have been deferred to the individual universities to handle. The universities are especially insulated if they have some type of internal appeals process with disinterested faculty/staff in place to deal with excesses of individual profs, department heads or even deans.

Before people start yelling about what the law says, check the case law in areas relating to colleges and universities. Unless you think that the courts are going to suddenly change their focus on the types of cases they hear, schools will continue to operate as they have done with little to no court interference.

U.S. Federal Law link

These are the types of cases the federal courts tend to hear:

Victory in Federal Court for Student Expelled for Peaceful Protest; University President Held Personally Responsible for Rights Violation - FIRE

FWIW, the hands-off approach to colleges and universities is similar to the courts' approach to professional sports. Also, the situation may be different with the for-profits in cases where a class-action lawsuit is filed.

 

To what twisted theory are you referring? Just curious.

 

Dave, you're debating a losing position within this thread. I'd recommend re-evaluating it. Like I said, the for-profit class action thing I totally get. Good luck getting any student any kind of winnable suit against an Ivy or established non-prof.