Student representatives are worried a precedent set by the Ontario Superior Court extends the university’s jurisdiction too far when it comes to sanctioning students. The court ruled last Friday that the university was within its bounds to punish first-year students misrepresenting their grades to third-party law firms in last spring’s marks scandal.

“It is surely of fundamental importance that students not misrepresent their achievements,” the judges’ decision read. “Other students, the business community and the University alike have a stake in the integrity of the record of the achievement and the University’s Code of Conduct can properly extend to such communications by students to the outside world. There is nothing in the language of [the Code] to confine its scope to communications within the University.”

The decision was a result of a judicial review application by Roxanne Shank, the only student suspended who chose to challenge the suspension handed to her by Law Dean Ron Daniels.

“I’m quite worried by the decision,” said SAC University Affairs Executive Paul Kendal. “It expands the purview of the code. It was bad enough that the university argued it in this case, but now the judges have expanded it to cover any communication about any information in my student record.”

Kendal expressed concern over the fact that the ruling covers all university information without any specific parameters. “Five years down the road, when I’m out of here, if I say to my grandma that I got an A in a course where I really got an A- . . . the school could revoke my degree retroactively. It’s just absurd,” he remarked.

But University Director of Public Affairs Sue Bloch-Nevitte says the decision merely reinforces the position the school has always taken.

“The court was very clear in terms of the jurisdictional side of things—the ruling clarifies what the position presently is, which is that the university is entirely within its rights to look at issues of academic misconduct. This ruling is important because it pertains to all members of the university,” said Bloch-Nevitte.

While the court sided with the school on the issue of jurisdiction, the judges did seriously question the validity of Shank’s own suspension. She was punished by the school for admitting an academic offence, though she maintained that she submitted a C+, rather than a C, due to careless error and not deliberation.

“The evidence does not objectively support the dean’s conclusion as to the admission of the offence for which the applicant was disciplined and the conclusion therefore may be considered patently unreasonable,” the decision read.

Shank’s lawyer Clayton Ruby later received a letter from the university, stating that they would take no further action against his client.