Lawyers Advertise to Litigate Integrity Accusations
Lawyers Advertise to Litigate Integrity Accusations
Plus, incidents at Massey University "on the rise." Plus, the Colorado honor policy quiz.
Issue 88
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Lawyers Hawk Litigation Services to Defend Accused Cheaters
It’s difficult to tell whether it’s a trend, but lawyers are advertising their legal services to defend those accused of academic misconduct specifically. And they seem to be investing in it.
This one, called DC Student Defense has even put together a video and mentions Chegg. To their credit, the ad doesn’t imply that using Chegg isn’t cheating, saying only that it may be. They suggest asking before using. That’s good advice.
In Maryland, the firm of Clark and Steinhorn has been a frequent listing in Google searches related to academic misconduct and has set up a page on cheating on their site. In it, a lawyer at the firm says:
Despite your quaint notion that it's "your" school, the student misconduct offices are notably devoid of any loyalty to the accused students.
Saying further that a lawyer can:
force the school to actually specifically disclose what the accusation is and what evidence exists that support the claim.
And
Historically, highly generalized claims of acadmic misconduct are made and largely unchallenged until the actual hearing at which time the schools empanel boards of people highly predisposed to convict their fellow students and deny any appeals from these convictions.
Yes, they misspelled “academic.”
In October, a lawyer in England penned an article for Times Higher Ed in which he made the case that accused students need legal support (see Issue 61).
And in at least two cases that made local papers, students have sued their schools after being caught and found responsible for misconduct (see Issue 83).
With cheating unquestionably on the increase and review and adjudication processes already clogged, lawyers finding profit by litigating integrity cases will make administering and enforcing academic integrity more complex, more expensive and adversarial - if not downright impossible. That, in turn, will place more weight on the side of not bothering to pursue these incidents at all.
From an institutional level, the role of lawyers in the process is worth keeping in view.
Cheating at Massey University
A new article in New Zealand says that academic misconduct cases at Massey University are “on the rise.”
It looks to be a rehash of news from September (see Issue 56) where misconduct cases in New Zealand were up nearly across the board and quite significantly.
Nonetheless, a few bits from the new article are worth a metaphorical underline or two. Here’s one:
A spokeswoman for the university said while there had been an increase around the world in the number of cheating cases, the reasons were complex.
Continuing:
The spokeswoman said it was hard to know why there had been an increase in 2019 and 2020, but generally the increase in the past four years of the “contract cheating/essay mill industry”, where students get other people to do their work, was probably one factor.
Probably.
Study: Students with Attention Problems more Likely to Cheat
According to public reports, a recent study out of Ohio State University found that “students with attention problems [are] more likely to cheat.”
I haven’t reviewed the research but interestingly the report links misconduct to difficulty focusing in learning settings, not disruptiveness. The lead author of the study, Eric Anderman, said,
Once you account for inattentiveness and hyperactivity, we found that disruptiveness wasn’t related to cheating. That is not what is driving cheating behaviors
Two Quick Bites
University of Colorado Academic Integrity Quiz - The University of Colorado, Boulder has a new page on academic integrity and it features a quiz on cheating.
I took it. I’d like to see it be more definitive and cover more ground. But it’s a good idea and deserves more visibility.
ICAI Hosts Webinar - The International Center for Academic Integrity has set a free webinar for Friday, January 28 on “Engaging Students in Academic Integrity.”
Leeanne Morrow from University of Calgary will give the presentation.
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