Cambridge University's alleged "old boys' network" could be facing a county court challenge as part of a long-running race discrimination row with an expelled Muslim student.
Former postgraduate finance student Kamran Beg has taken his campaign to clear his name against allegations of plagiarism into its fifth year, with his legal team seeking damages against the university for breach of contract. Mr Beg alleges numerous failings in Cambridge's internal examination and grievance procedures. He claims that the alleged plagiarised work was never his in the first place, and that Cambridge marked the wrong essay.
Mr Beg had a first-class honours degree and a masters degree with distinction when he enrolled at Trinity College in 1995 on an MPhil in finance. Within a year, he passed all three core subjects, but scored relatively poorly, with 62 per cent, on a fourth unit of assessment, an essay that was later alleged to have been plagiarised.
By 1997, Mr Beg had exhausted the university's internal grievance procedures, was found guilty of plagiarism and expelled.
Mr Beg has always claimed that someone else's work had been attributed to him.
Represented by education law specialist Jas Gill and supported by the Campaign for Academic Freedom and Academic Standards and his current employers, Mr Beg has warned the university that he has a case to seek damages in the county court for breach of contract. He alleges:
- The university failed to use reasonable care in the reception and storage of essays
- There has been no investigation by an expert graphologist
- There has been no examination by linguistic or stylistic analysts to verify the plagiarised work as his
- There was a failure to properly address his grievances
- The alleged plagiarism, said by one tutor to be relatively minor, was dealt with in a disproportionately severe way, with similar previous incidents handled more leniently.
Mr Beg has many supporters, including his former university supervisors, despite his failure in 1998 to win a judicial review of the procedures used by Cambridge's appeal court.
Mr Beg's employers, a global telecommunications firm, described his work as "outstanding". He asked The THES not to name them. He said he hoped to seek a resolution without resorting to further court action.
The university said Mr Beg was found by the university's court of discipline to have "made use of unfair means" in an examination. A spokeswoman said his failure to win a judicial review in 1998 "concludes the matter".