Student: ‘It just looked like I was cheating’
June 8, 2010 by Taylor HanniganPosted in: Academics, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
The school said it was cheating. The student said it was just a “back condition.” Guess who won?
While Phat Van Le was taking an exam, the proctor observed suspicious movements that led him to believe Le might be looking at a classmate’s work. When the proctor reminded the students that cheating was not allowed, Le’s suspicious behavior stopped.
Le was later officially accused of cheating on the exam, and a hearing was held. The proctor talked about what he saw, and four of Le’s classmates said they believed they’d seen him cheat on other tests.
Le’s explanation: Any unusual movements were caused by a back condition that makes it hard for him to sit still for long periods of time.
The hearing panel didn’t buy Le’s explanation, and he was expelled. He sued the school, claiming violation of his due process rights.
He lost. A federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling against him, saying he was given all the process he was due. Le was allowed to present his defense; it just didn’t fly.
Cite: Le v. University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey.
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Tags: Cheating, due process, University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey
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June 12th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Dear All,
At Columbia, the Chinese students have a network where they send all the exams back to China and students show up to graduate programs will copies of all the old exams and the solutions. The problem is that some advanced subjects don’t lend themselves to being able to invent too many different exam questions. To get around this problem, the professors sometimes offer open book exams but the material is so hard that having the book really doesn’t help. What does help the Chinese students is that they show up with a book of old exams and solutions and just copy the answers to the exam. The data bank of exams they have is so old that the professors can’t possibly invent a question that hasn’t already been used. But even if it was a closed book exam, the fact that the Chinese got to study directly from the 20 or so possible questions gives them a distinct advantage. The university says that it isn’t cheating. When I complained and said that the university should put a copy of all the old exams in the library so that everyone can study from those same exams, the university refused. Why? Why should you have to know a Chinese person in order to get a copy of the old exams? Why is a university allowed by its accreditation people to grant academic recognition as a reward for having a strong ethnic and race based social network or any other kind of social network?
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
February 9th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Dear Sean,
Wow jealous of students outperforming you much? As a student you should try harder than complain complain complain and make up things. As a fellow caucasian I feel disappointed. Did you have proof to show the professors or the school? No I did not think so. Sounds a bit racist to me.