The University entrusts many individuals with the power to use their judgement to say Yes or No to student requests, or decide if a student has infringed a policy. This approach acknowledges the obvious: a one-size-fits-all strategy will leave some at a disadvantage. This task is not straightforward. It takes time, resources, sensitivity, technical know-how to balance evidence, and the courage to stand by a decision. Sometimes, decision-makers don’t follow through with their duty and unjustly create self-imposed rules to insulate themselves from these pitfalls. 

Consider the following anonymized scenario, where a decision-maker limited their own ability to be flexible and thus denied a student the proper consideration their request was owed: 

A Chair considers a case where a student is alleged to have plagiarized his final assignment by failing to include some references. The Chair thinks that it was likely a mistake due to a lack of knowledge rather than a calculated action to deceive. The student has a learning difference that impacts his concentration, attention to detail, and stress management. It is his first university course and he is a new arrival to Canada. The student explains how he has visited the Centre for Academic Communication and has spoken multiple times with his professor about how he can avoid this. Given the stress caused by the accusations and the student’s remediating actions, the Chair is pretty sure the student won’t do something like this again. Despite this, the Chair fails the student’s assignment (and, as a result, the course), because the policy states that a fail is normally imposed for instances like this. Additionally, the Chair feels that she cannot be more lenient, because she has imposed this penalty for similar infractions on other students in the past and she may get complaints about differential treatment or inconsistency. In the back of her mind, she’s also worried that she’ll have to do the same or at least consider doing the same for every student who has a similar situation and it would be a free-for-all. As a result, the student fails the course and must pay international tuition again. His admission to a future graduate school is now in jeopardy. He’s disillusion and wonders why this couldn’t have just been a learning opportunity without the harsh punishment. 

Consider the next scenario with a similar theme: 

An academic unit adopts a practice where they deny all waivers (exceptions) for certain requirements with little to no regard to the student’s circumstances. Likely, they do this because there are so many requests and they can indisputably justify the denials because of their duty to safeguard the integrity of the program. The person responsible for approving or denying these waivers is also very busy and has more pressing responsibilities. This practice is not publicized despite a waiver form being available on the advising website. 

To graduate as planned, a student needs to take two courses at the same time, but one is a pre-requisite for the other. Using the form, the student asks for a waiver. She submits a detailed plan for completion and shares her circumstances in detail. She has a high GPA. The instructor writes a letter of support stating that the student will likely be successful without the pre-requisite knowledge. A few weeks later, the request is denied in a short email with no reference to how the decision was reached or by whom. The student now needs to find housing at the last minute. She also declines a job offer, as her graduation is delayed. She doesn’t know what to appeal, because there was no rationale given and an appeal would likely take too long. She feels like the department led her on by posting the pre-requisite waiver form, but then not truly considering her request. She thinks it would have been better to know that she couldn’t do it in the first place, so she could have planned accordingly. 

University policies and procedures give some certainty and predictability to people making requests. These policies and procedures may stipulate what the rules are, what is within the decision-maker’s jurisdiction, and what factors should be considered — but, eventually, it comes down to an individual to make the call. This power bestowed on a decision-maker is called discretion — and it is granted for good reason.

In a busy academic environment, taking the time and dedicating the resources to exercise one’s discretion (i.e. properly consider the circumstances of each case) can be straining. In addition, decision-makers can easily adopt the fallacy that treating every request the same is fairest.²

Likely in response to these issues, decision-makers can be tempted to fetter their own discretion by creating rigid rules to treat each case the same and, in essence, make the choice for them. This is not confined to the university setting, in fact, fettering discretion is a legal term where a body that is entrusted with discretionary decisions focuses “blindly on a particular policy to the exclusion of other relevant factors.”( Halfway River First Nation v. British Columbia (Ministry of Forests), 1999 BCCA 470  at para. 62.).

Ombudspersons across the province are attuned to this issue.³ Speaking to the university setting, Shirley Nakata, the University of British Columbia’s Ombudsperson for Students, has shared: 

Fairness is flexible and context-specific. Cognitive and administrative shortcuts help us to get through the day without being paralyzed by the sheer volume of information we need to assess. However, the proper exercise of discretion requires slowing down and engaging with the facts of each individual case. […] Zero-tolerance policies (i.e. if x, then y) may sound progressive and efficient, but fail to allow for the proper consideration of relevant factors.

UBC Ombudsperson for Students’ 2022 Annual Report

Failing to consider context and individual circumstances perpetuates injustice. In the scenarios above, the decision-makers did not “slow down and engage with the facts” and likely missed key information that would have changed a reasonable person’s mind. The students in these scenarios may well have deserved a different outcome. Without a doubt, the students deserved at least proper consideration. 

A common area of difficulty arises at UVic around the word normally. Several policies and procedures include this proviso when describing a recommended course of action or outcome. The word normally signals to those reading a policy that UVic wants there to be room for consideration of the circumstances. To those administering a policy, the word normally should signal that it is their duty to fully consider a case and its circumstances when deciding on an outcome — and exercise their discretion when appropriate. Normally has been specifically included in the policies to empower decision-makers to be able to choose another option or be creative in their outcomes. To ignore it, is to act contrary to policy and to UVic’s ethical commitments. 

By limiting this essential task of exercising discretion, these errant decision-makers risk undercutting UVic’s commitments to equity, respect, diversity, and cultural sensitivity. They ignore the lived reality of students in favour of expediency or the one-size-fits-all mentality. This is an injustice.