Learning lawyering skills, and becoming competent or proficient in them, is a struggle. This article is a call to action for all legal educators: We need to acknowledge that students struggle, to expect it, and to convey to students that their struggle is normal. In fact, struggle is productive — learning is hard, and lawyers learn and struggle throughout their careers.
This article examines and criticizes the ways legal academia treats law students’ academic struggle as a problem, and suggests that legal educators reorient their attitudes toward struggle, forgiving and embracing student struggle, even building opportunities for struggle into the curriculum. By normalizing the fact of struggle, law schools will not only improve the wellness of their students, but also create lawyers who are better prepared to cope with the constant problem-solving required of successful lawyers.
'The Legalities of Revoking University Degrees for Misconduct: Recommendations for Australian Universities' by Pnina Levine and Michelle Evans in (2018) 41(1) UNSW Law Journal 185 comments
The revocation of university degrees, whilst once unheard of, has been increasingly employed by Australian universities in the wake of high-profile cheating scandals. Yet, to date, there is only one reported Australian case, Re La Trobe University; Ex Parte Hazan in which a student has challenged a university’s decision to revoke a degree. However, this case does not comprehensively address the legal issues surrounding decisions to revoke degrees. This paper therefore seeks to provide Australian universities with some clarity with respect to these issues, elucidating the source of the power of universities to revoke degrees, and the circumstances in which this power can be exercised. It does so through a review of English and United States case law, an analysis of accepted Australian administrative law principles, and an examination of university legislation in Australia.
The authors state
The subject of revoking university degrees recently gained attention in Australia following the ‘MyMaster’ cheating scandal which resulted in several Australian universities revoking the degrees of graduates who had engaged in purchasing assignments during their degree studies. The consequences of revocation are unsurprisingly severe for a graduate. If a degree is revoked, the graduate’s career options, chances of enrolment in future study, and their reputation and livelihood can suffer substantial damage. Scandals involving the revocation of degrees by universities can also cause serious reputational damage to universities, and compromise the integrity of their degrees.
Due to these cheating scandals, universities have become increasingly vigilant about discouraging, detecting and dealing with instances of misconduct. In these circumstances, it is likely that universities will be faced more frequently with the question of whether to revoke the degrees of their graduates and will need to be more mindful of the legal issues and consequences relating to such a course of action. However, the laws surrounding the power of universities to revoke degrees, including the grounds on which a university graduate may challenge the revocation of their degree, are largely untested in an Australian context and require clarification. There is some academic literature and case law on this issue in the United States. However, there is minimal academic literature in Australia, and only one reported case decided in 1993 by a University Visitor, being Re La Trobe University; Ex Parte Hazan (‘Hazan’).
The decision in Hazan does not address many of the legal issues surrounding revocation. In fact, the case raises more questions about the legalities surrounding revocation than it answers. For example, what power does a university actually have to revoke a degree? If it does have such power, is this power unconstrained? More specifically, what sort of academic misconduct is sufficient to justify the revocation of a degree? Further, does the imposition of such a penalty apply only to academic matters, or could it extend to other disciplinary matters involving social misconduct? Given the severity of the consequences to a graduate that may result from the revocation of his or her degree, should all of the grounds upon which revocation may be justified be defined and listed in university statutes? Finally, what are the procedures that should be followed by a university before making a revocation decision? For example, what standard of procedural fairness is required to be afforded to a graduate facing the penalty of revocation? This article seeks to address these questions, which are largely untested in an Australian context.
