DURHAM, N.C.
Asian students involved in a cheating scandal at the Duke University business school were punished more severely than others, their attorney says.
Many of the students involved in the case at the Fuqua School of Business had been in the United States for less than a year and didn’t fully understand the honor code or judicial proceedings, says Durham attorney Robert Ekstrand.
A faculty investigator pressured them to admit wrongdoing, so the students wrote confession letters, sometimes without understanding the specific accusations, he says.
“There is something else going on here, something that needs to be explained before we go forward with this, because it doesn’t look right,” says Ekstrand, who has filed appeals on behalf of 16 students.
Thirty-four graduate students at the business school were convicted of cheating on an exam and other assignments. Nine students were expelled and 15 were suspended for a year and given a failing grade in the class. The remaining students received failing grades.
The students who were expelled from the university are all from Asian countries, Ekstrand says. If appeals fail, they’ll likely lose student visas and have to leave the country in the next couple of weeks.
