Oxford U Students Not Smart Enough to Avoid Facebook Fines

Education Law

Oxford U Students Not Smart Enough to Avoid Facebook Fines

Posted Apr 18, 2008, 06:16 pm CDT
By Martha Neil

They attend one of the world's most renowned institutions of higher learning. But even after students learned that proctors at Oxford University are logging onto Facebook in search of evidence, many haven't been able to resist participating in—and posting online photographs of--excessive celebration of their upcoming graduation.

Hence, the proctors in charge of enforcing Oxford's code of conduct have had a field day fining students for dousing one another with champagne, shaving cream, flour, eggs and worse, according to the London Times. Undeterred by student complaints of privacy violations after the Facebook connection became clear last year, proctors continued to surf the social networking site looking for evidence of such "trashings."

Their enforcement effort has been significant. Levying individual fines of between 40 pounds to 500 pounds, the proctors have imposed penalties totaling more than 10,000 pounds—that's almost $20,000 in U.S. dollars, and far more than last year's excessive celebration payday for the university, the newspaper says.

At least one senior proctor was unrepentant about his enforcement role: “There is one clear sign that we took the right line over misbehavior after examinations," economics tutor and senior proctor James Forder told the Times. "Everyone was furious with us.”

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