Student Punished For Facebook Study Group Files $10 Million Lawsuit
from the going-overboard dept
Two years ago, we chronicled what seemed like a bizarre story of Ryerson student Chris Avenir, who was threatened with expulsion for daring to setup an online study group for his chemistry class on Facebook. The university accused him of cheating, when he noted that this was really no different than if a bunch of the students all got together to study. The whole thing seemed pretty ridiculous. Eventually, the school decided not to expel him, but still punished him by giving him a zero on one assignment and putting a "disciplinary note" in his file. This still seemed ridiculous. How dare he get students together to study the material! In fact, many schools now encourage those kinds of online study groups.That said, it's difficult to support Avenir's latest move, which is to file a class action lawsuit against Ryerson, asking for $10 million because he wasn't allowed to have a lawyer present at his disciplinary hearing (found via Michael Scott):
A statement of claim filed on Mr. Avenir's behalf says that students enrolled at Ryerson have been denied the right to have a lawyer present at disciplinary hearings. According to the document, the university violated its policy requiring that all hearings comply with the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, which guarantees a right to legal counsel. The policy states that all its Senate hearings must "be conducted in a manner consistent with" the act.This is just taking it too far. Yes, the disciplinary action was crazy, but a $10 million class action lawsuit? That seems like a response purely out of spite.
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Filed Under: cheating, chris avenir, class action, students, study group
Companies: facebook, ryerson university
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Sounds to me like number selected purely to draw attention to the lawsuit.
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Re:
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Intentional Streisand Effect?
(At least I hope so otherwise it is just NUTS)
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Re: Intentional Streisand Effect?
This is not a case of unintended (on the part of the student) consequences since he wanted publicity and he is getting it.
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The school over stepped the boundary for them to realize this I think a $10 million slap is appropriate.
It called fighting back. plus he could always argue that he would like to pay for his entertainment and that that missing grade has cost him the big paying job so to afford the outrageous cost of ebooks and electronic downloads it justified.
more power to him, there needs to be consequences to these unfair actions and it appears that only money speaks more the pity, but play by the sword die by the sword.
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That seems like a response purely out of spite.
1 Denied legal counsel
2 a zero on one assignment (dont know the effect it had on his GPA, but it was negative. avg 100 + 100 + 0 etc)
3 A "disciplinary note" that may follow you around for life.
Spiteful? ABSOLUTELY!!!!! I Dont blame him.
"Yes, the disciplinary action was crazy"
Crazy is as crazy does.
"disciplinary action" For having done nothing wrong.
Screw em, hit em hard and make them think twice, or better yet, get the bean counters to force legal to adopt best practices to avoid this kind of legal action in the future.
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As you sow, so you reap.
To me the school must loose. This will open the eyes of people in education system where they just threaten students with expulsion and grade them poorly because the student was doing something they didn't wanted him to do. They should understand the importance of school in society. Even if we forget the moral responsibility of schools, they are also shrugging of their professional responsibilities. If they think they have dictatorial powers over students and they can commercialize education, if they think choose to ignore the rights of students, I don't have any sympathy for them.
Probably in the kind of capitalistic society we live, this is one of the better and quick options to keep a check before it's too late.
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Re: As you sow, so you reap.
Just to be clear, that "old saying" is actually a passage in the Bible:
"Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Galattions 6:7
Woot for unintentionally evangelizing, vyvyan!
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Re: Re: As you sow, so you reap.
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education
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Rule of Thumb (according to a lawyer I know)
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Re: Rule of Thumb (according to a lawyer I know)
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Aiming high
The main goal is to strike fear into the "powers at be", get your legal fees paid, and get compensated for your hassle.
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Sounds reasonable enough
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Re: Sounds reasonable enough
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Nice
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Being a foreigner, the impression I get is that the entire US judicial system is fueled by spite.
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Mike, I think your wrong.
It sickens me to no end to see these abuses of power time and time again with nothing done about it. These abuses require a measured response greater than just a little bit of public embarrassment. The school threatened to end his higher education over something petty that was blown out of proportion. That was a huge over-reaction. Then to spite him in the face of the PR mess they punished him the best they could at the time.
That is like someone punching you for alerting a store to their shoplifting. They are the one doing the wrong, but you still get punished for it. Its not right and something has to be done about these bullies.
So now the kid is stepping up and finding any way he can to fight back and let them know that they can't just keep having their way. Its bad enough that primary education (high school and below) is allowed to trample on the rights of its students, but colleges are dealing with young adults whom are of full legal age (18+). Once you are legally an adult then you LEGALLY have full rights and as such NO ONE is allowed to deny them to you, even a University.
So yes, while it may be a bit spiteful it is also just. It is his right to punish those that harm him. In many ways justice is about spite. Its a you hurt me so I will return the favor scenario. If you think about it justice is just a controlled, measured, equivalent action form of spite.
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This is cruel, but...
I can hardly wait for all of the non-Internet people in mainstream life to die-off so that we don't have to put up with their socially retarded perceptions and actions. The world has moved on but too many of these non-Internet people are still in positions where they impede the rest of us. It's like putting a bunch of zombies on the court during an NBA basketball game.
In this case, we're talking about a school, FFS. Ryerson hasn't discovered the value of facebook and the Internet yet? Note to self: never, ever hire a Ryerson grad.
I'm just sayin'...
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Due Process
Ryerson broke it's honour code, and it should have to pay for it's lack of fealty.
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wow
Congrats to him!
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I disagree with "This is just taking it too far"
I say good for him and I hope he Wins!
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Appropriate? Yes.
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Re: Appropriate? Yes.
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Action and reaction!
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Punitive damages should be exactly that: punitive!
I suppose a 10-million U$D fine will, indeed, discourage them from doing it, or something like it, again.
Agreed?
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The reasonable line here would be to sue the people involved in the disciplinary action and for a few thousands of $$$, not an amount that drives them to misery. A few thousands of $$$ is sufficient that they'll remember to be careful in the future.
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Enough? No
No. That kind of money will not be visible internally, they'll just pay it out of some random account and continue as before. I fully agree with his strategy. 10 M$ will not only get the attention of the media but hopefully also make the board sit up and take notice. Only way to rattle a buke-rat - kick his superior, not his anterior.
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Dumb!
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I ran into similar crap decades ago in high school, but I couldn't make too many waves because my father taught at the school and pushing things too far would have jeopardized his job.
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Settle
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Re: Settle
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A response purely out of spite?
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To me the school must loose. This will open the eyes of people in education system where they just threaten students with expulsion and grade them poorly because the student was doing something they didn't wanted him to do. They should understand the importance of school in society. Even if we forget the moral responsibility of schools, they are also shrugging of their professional responsibilities. If they think they have dictatorial powers over students and they can commercialize education, if they think choose to ignore the rights of students, I don't have any sympathy for them.
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