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Title: British Court Rules for Professor Whose Decision to Fail Students Was Overturned Publication: The Chronicle |
Country: United Kingdom |
Published Date: February 25, 2010 |
When a British university overturned a professor's decision to award failing grades to some of his students, it constituted "an unequivocal affront to his integrity," a British appeals court ruled on Wednesday. Paul Buckland, a professor of environmental archaeology at Bournemouth University, resigned in protest when several students whose examinations he had failed were subsequently given passing marks after the department's program leader and the dean of the school of conservation intervened. The dean did not consult Mr. Buckland about the regrading process, and Mr. Buckland subsequently complained to the university, triggering an investigation.
When that inquiry partly vindicated Mr. Buckland but concluded that "in this particular case any fault lay with the examiners and that a head of school has a right to arbitrarily overrule the correct marking process," he resigned. Wednesday's unanimous three-judge appeals-court ruling upheld a 2008 employment-tribunal decision that found in favor of Mr. Buckland in his claim of unfair dismissal against the university. Mr. Buckland told The Telelegraph that the ruling "restores the right of individual academics to return marks within the subject in which they are acknowledged experts."