Lukacs wasn't on the board when this student was exempted from the exam requirement or had his course upgraded. Another professor resigned in protest and Lukacs took his place.
He had never met the student until he served the student with papers for the lawsuit.
The University says it has suspended Lukacs without pay for violating the student's privacy by naming the student and discussing the student's medical conditions in the lawsuit. UofM claims this is a violation of academic privacy and a violation of the law concerning medical privacy.
Lukacs claims he is acting so that his good name is not sullied by being associated with a degree mill. Interesting, to say the least. I see many laudatory comments here. Are other universities as interested in having Lukacs on board as posters here would suggest? If so, why not go to a place with the standards he admires, instead of trying to carry UofM on his shoulders?
My first two startup jobs were in the Canadian health and education sectors, respectively. As government responsibilities, education and health care are covered by provincial freedom of information and privacy protection (FOIPP) laws. They go by different names in each province; Manitoba's is known as FIPPA.
In general, the laws are pretty strict about not releasing information. Student and health information is not supposed to be available to anyone except on a need-to-know basis, much less made available publicly. Our product had to have an elaborate system of permissions to prevent instructors from inappropriately viewing student data. Even something as apparently innocuous as posting a list of grades matched up against student names or IDs is forbidden.
The laws aren't for show, either. Everyone I interacted with in the course of that job, from bureaucrats down to individual instructors, took FOIPP very seriously. FOIPP compliance was a non-negotiable feature, and FOIPP violation bugs were always highest priority.
Typically, instructors become aware of student disabilities when they are asked to make special arrangements, such as arranging assistant note takers or special exams. Anyone who reveals that information is breaking educational and medical privacy, and would be in for a world of hurt.
I'm not aware if there are special exceptions for information released in the course of a lawsuit, but I'm not surprised that the university reacted severely. They take those laws seriously here.
> why not go to a place with the standards he admires, instead of trying to carry UofM on his shoulders?
Because if he can fix UofM others will benefit. If he moves on, nobody will. There is competitive pressures on universities to become degree mills and it must be stopped.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/01/umanitoba%E2%80%94phd-dip...
Lukacs wasn't on the board when this student was exempted from the exam requirement or had his course upgraded. Another professor resigned in protest and Lukacs took his place.
He had never met the student until he served the student with papers for the lawsuit.
The University says it has suspended Lukacs without pay for violating the student's privacy by naming the student and discussing the student's medical conditions in the lawsuit. UofM claims this is a violation of academic privacy and a violation of the law concerning medical privacy.
Lukacs claims he is acting so that his good name is not sullied by being associated with a degree mill. Interesting, to say the least. I see many laudatory comments here. Are other universities as interested in having Lukacs on board as posters here would suggest? If so, why not go to a place with the standards he admires, instead of trying to carry UofM on his shoulders?