School Faces Heavy Criticism That They Treated Avenir Unfairly

Toronto- Following weeks of heavy back and forth charges the Toronto University that charged a student for academic misconduct in connection with a Facebook posting is finally breathing a sigh of relief.

Ryerson University dodged a heavy public relations bullet when the decided at the last minute not to expel student Chris Avenir for his posting on the Facebook Internet Web site.  Avenir posted information that his college professor felt violated the schools academic honesty policy last fall.

The University finally ruled on March 18th that they would not be expelling Mr. Avenir but that his charge of academic misconduct would remain.  This was seen as a hollow victory by some, but one that left many with negative feelings and impressions about the University as a whole.

Many in the student and academic communities insist that posting on a Facebook site, such as Mr. Avenir did, constitutes a method of sharing information in a open study format.

Critics say that preventing such open sharing and study will provide a chilling censorship to the academic community at large.  Many academic groups have lined up behind Chris Avenir in support of his actions.  The Ryerson University incident will slowly die out, but for now bad feelings remain on both sides regarding the incident.