06/25/2020

Alberta Council on Academic Integrity Statement Against Racism in Matters Related to Academic Integrity

Written by Sarah Elaine Eaton

Spotlight: The Alberta Council on Academic Integrity

 Statement Against Racism in Matters Related to Academic Integrity

On June 4^th, 2020, the Alberta Council on Academic Integrity released a Statement Against Racism in Matters Relating to Academic Integrity. The group formed in 2019 to promote and advocate for academic integrity across Alberta.

The Alberta Council on Academic Integrity stands united against systemic racism and discrimination in all forms. As such, they have released a statement recognizing and opposing the racism evident in the manner in which particular students are identified, reported and sanctioned for breaches of academic integrity based on race, colour or language.

The council issues a call to action for other academic integrity networks and organizations to develop similar public statements against systemic racism. The full statement follows:

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Academic integrity cannot co-exist with injustice. The Alberta Council on Academic Integrity denounces racism in all forms.

 This includes:

• Negative stereotyping of students from particular countries or cultures.
• Racially biased reporting of academic misconduct that either implicitly or explicitly targets students of colour, students for whom English is not a first language and other racialized minorities.
• Excessively harsh sanctioning of academic misconduct among racialized minorities.

We call upon all educators, administrators and institutions to:

• Acknowledge that particular groups of students are over-represented in academic misconduct reporting.
• Speak out against racial stereotypes that persist against Black, Asian, Latinx, and Indigenous students with regards to academic misconduct.
• Ensure that reporting of academic integrity violations is consistent across the student body and breaches are addressed in fair and equitable ways.
• Collect institutional academic misconduct data on racialized minorities in order to identify, prevent, and pro-actively address racial bias in reporting and sanctioning of students who are not white or for whom English is not their first language.

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Questions about this statement can be directed to members of the Steering Committee.

More information on the council can be found here https://albertaacademicintegrity.wordpress.com/

Steering Committee (Members listed alphabetically by institution):

• Margaret Toye, Bow Valley College
• Melanie (Mel) Hamilton, Lethbridge College
• Marg Olfert, Mount Royal University
• Nazanin Teymouri, Norquest College
• Sheryl Boisvert, Norquest College
• Cheryl Kier, Athabasca University
• Sarah Elaine Eaton, University of Calgary

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