Andrew Croskery – cearta.ie

Is a lost First worth £5m?

16 February, 201117 September, 2020

| Academic Freedom, Academic judgment, Andrew Croskery, Contract, Grading and Marking, Litigation, Universities

After Andrew Croskery comes Tony Chinedu Wogu. According to the Daily Telegraph and The Register, Tony Chinedu Wogu has failed in his bid to sue the University of Bradford for £5m compensation, alleging that a 2:2 and not a First in Computing Science was the result of discrimination and breach of contract. Judge Andrew Collender QC struck out his case, saying academics had a much better understanding of the quality of a student’s work than lawyers did. As Treacy J had done in Croskery, Collender QC pointed out that Mr Wogu could seek judicial review of the university’s decision to award him a 2:2, but only after he had exhausted his internal appeals. Moreover, he reasserted the principle of judicial deference to matters of purely academic judgment (as opposed to breaches of procedure):

This court has the most limited of powers to interfere in such a decision. This court has not the power or expertise to simply examine or to determine the proper degree grade to which the claimant would have been entitled from the University of Bradford. That is a decision particularly within the scope of an academic institution. It would not be for this court to apply its judgment as to the degree level reached and substitute that for the university’s … and the defendants’ application to strike out is successful.

…

Chinese walls and palm tree justice | Baby Barista blog via guardian.co.uk

26 January, 2011

| No Comments

| Andrew Croskery, General

BusyBody was talking about her case at chambers tea yesterday which involves a student appealing a decision by his college to expel him. ‘It was a complete kangaroo court,’ she said.

‘I’ve always loved the image that conjures up,’ said TheVamp. ‘You know, a huge kangaroo of a judge and all the little joeys coming up before him and with none of them able to sit still for a second. All bouncing up and down on the spot trying to make their submissions.’

via guardian.co.uk

There are more clichés and metaphors in the post, but this passage raises a profound issue: Is this really how college decisions to expel students are taken?

…

Re Croskery [2010] NIQB 129

4 January, 201117 September, 2020

| 6 Comments

| Academic judgment, Andrew Croskery, Grading and Marking, Litigation, Universities

On this blog last year, I discussed the circumstances in which a university student could challenge a grade in court. Just before Christmas, the Northern Ireland High Court handed down a very important judgment on this issue. In Re Croskery [2010] NIQB 129 (8 December 2010), the applicant, Andrew Croskery, sought leave to apply for judicial review against a refusal by Queens University Belfast to reclassify his degree. In the Queen’s Bench Division of the Northern Ireland High Court (pictured left), Treacy J denied the application. In cases of this kind, where an objection is simply to matters of academic judgment, the courts show great deference to such matters, and are very slow to interfere. The deference is stated in different ways in the cases, and the parties accepted a strong form of it in Croskery. As Treacy J held

on the authority of Re Wislang’s Application [1984] NI 63 (.doc) and Thomas v University of Bradford [1987] AC 795 (.doc) the matters in dispute would presently fall exclusively within the visitorial jurisdiction of the university – subject only to the possibility that any ultimate decision of the Board of Visitors might itself be judicially reviewable.

…

Leave is refused in QUB graduate’s judicial review of his degree result

8 December, 201031 January, 2013

| 3 Comments

| Andrew Croskery, Grading and Marking, Litigation, Universities

It’s being reported that Andrew Croskery has failed in his bid to review the 2:2 engineering degree he was awarded by Queen’s University Belfast. According to the BBC:

Judge rules no judicial review over disputed degree

A judge refuses leave for a judicial review of decisions made by Queen’s University over a graduate’s disputed degree classification.

Andrew Croskery, from County Down, was seeking leave for a review of decisions made by the university’s Board of Examiners. But a High Court judge ruled the case should remain exclusively within the jurisdiction of Queen’s appeals body. …

Mr Justice Treacy said that even if this confirmed the existing classification, two further rights of appeal were open to Mr Croskery. He can take his challenge to the University’s Central Students Appeals Committee, and to a Board of Visitors. …

According to the UTV news website, Mr Justice Treacy concluded: “The matter in dispute remains exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Board of Visitors.” And, according to the RTÉ news website, Queen’s has said it will convene a further hearing of the Board of Examiners to study the case. When the judgment is available on the NI Courts & Tribunals website or Bailii, I’ll return to this case.…

Grading and marking, updates

29 October, 201031 January, 2013

| 4 Comments

| Andrew Croskery, Grading and Marking, Litigation, Restitution, Universities

First, to my posts on grading and marking, I must add a wonderful post by not that kind of doctor applying the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross model of five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance – to the process of grading papers! Wonderful (h/t efdel).

Second, in another grading and marking story, this time by way of comparison with my posts on Andrew Croskery‘s case against QUB, consider the case of a student who sued the University of Pennsylvania for awarding him a degree from their engineering college rather than Wharton School of Business: his misrepresentation and unjust enrichment claims failed.

Third, in one of my posts on the Croskery litigation, I analysed a similar recent case in the Ontario Court of Appeal: Jaffer v York University 2010 ONCA 654 (7 October 2010). There’s an interesting post on the case on the Canadian blog, The Court, This Student Isn’t Just a Number:

(1) Universities: Now, Not-So-Independent Centres of Learning
Perhaps the most interesting and relevant aspect of this case concerns the Court’s finding that academic disputes grounded in contract or tort can be heard by the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario.

…

Making the grade

16 October, 201031 January, 2013

| 2 Comments

| Andrew Croskery, Grading and Marking, Litigation, Universities

Via the incomparable 9th level Ireland blog, I (rather belatedly) learn that Andrew Croskery, a graduate of Queen’s University Belfast who has taken judicial review proceedings to challenge his degree results (on which I have previously blogged: 1, 2, 3, 4; and there is also an excellent post Jason Smith), might have got a result during the week. According to the BBC, QUB has agreed to review his grade. It seems that he was only 0.5% off obtaining a 2:1 in his degree, and in his judicial review proceedings, he claimed that if he had received better supervision he would have achieved that 2:1. On Tuesday, the High Court granted a three-week adjournment to allow QUB to review his degree classification on the alleged grounds of inadequate supervision and procedural irregularities. QUB told the Court that it made the proposal without prejudice in a bid to ease his concerns. Moreover, the Belfast Telegraph reported that if he is still unhappy with the outcome, he would now be able to appeal his results. As Education Law Blog points out

This appears to be a successful outcome for the student, as the provision of a review is about as much as he could have expected to achieve by way of his legal proceedings.

…

Academic judgment and breach of contract in Ontario

14 October, 201017 September, 2020

| 8 Comments

| Academic Freedom, Academic judgment, Andrew Croskery, Contract, Litigation, Universities

Omar Ha-Redeye has blogged on Slaw about an Ontario CA decision that is very relevant to the judicial review proceedings being taken by Andrew Croskery to challenge his degree results in Queen’s University Belfast (on which I have previously blogged: 1, 2, 3). The gravamen of those posts was that courts are slow to disturb substantive academic decisions, though beyond that sphere, they will of course give effect to claims in tort or for breach of contract. This distinction is at the heart of the case at issue in Omar’s blogpost: Jaffer v York University 2010 ONCA 654 (7 October 2010).

In this case, the plaintiff challenged a decision to exclude him at the end of his first year because he had not maintained a sufficient grade average, on the grounds that the university had failed to make proper accommodation for his Trisomy 21 (Down’s Syndrome) and that he had detrimentally relied on an alleged promise by a professor to defer his status while the dispute over disability was resolved. His claim failed at first instance, in part on the ground that, “[w]hile there may be contractual or tortious issues within the broader claim, if the pith and substance of the impugned conduct is academic in nature, the action cannot be continued in the courts” ([24] Pitt J).…

Grievance poses academy ‘threat’

8 October, 201031 January, 2013

| 4 Comments

| Academic Freedom, Andrew Croskery, Contract, Grading and Marking, Litigation, Universities

Further to my two previous posts concerning student challenges to degree classification, there is a piece in this week’s Times Higher Education on the judicial review proceedings taken by Andrew Croskery challenging his degree results in Queen’s University Belfast. The piece contains some interesting reactions to the challenge [with added links]:

Grievance poses academy ‘threat’

… Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, warned that if the case were successful it could unleash a wave of similar challenges. “Of course it is important that universities do right by students. But if a student feels they are getting inadequate supervision, contact or anything else, they should deal with it up front and at the time. Otherwise the floodgates will be opened and it will be impossible to judge genuine cases from chancers,” he said.

Roger Brown, professor of higher education policy at Liverpool Hope University, described the case as a battle between academic authority and the marketisation of higher education. He said a ruling in favour of Mr Croskery would be “disastrous” because it would undermine universities’ academic authority. He noted that legal challenges of college grades were quite common in the US but said British courts had taken the view in similar previous cases that universities were in the best position to make academic judgements.

…