Olsson v. Board of Higher Ed.
| Decision Date | 20 February 1980 |
| Citation | 402 N.E.2d 1150,49 N.Y.2d 408,426 N.Y.S.2d 248 |
| Parties | , 402 N.E.2d 1150, 11 A.L.R.4th 1175 In the Matter of Eugene C. OLSSON, Respondent, v. BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION of the City of New York et al., Appellants. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
This case presents the novel questions of whether and under what circumstances a court may intervene in the decision of an educational institution to withhold a diploma from one of its students on academic grounds. Specifically, we are asked to determine whether an educational institution may be estopped from asserting that a student has not fulfilled the requirements for graduation where the student's deficiency was caused in part by his reliance upon a professor's misleading statement regarding the institution's grading criteria. Although we find that the facts and circumstances presented in this case did not warrant the extreme remedy of requiring the institution to award a diploma to one whom it deemed unqualified, we nevertheless refrain from holding that the principles of equitable estoppel may never be used to avoid the harsh effects of an arbitrary academic determination.
The petitioner in this case, Eugene Olsson, was a candidate for a Master's degree at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a branch of the City University of New York. Having completed the bulk of his studies with an "honors" average, Olsson elected to take a final "comprehensive" examination in lieu of submitting a Master's thesis, as permitted by the school's academic regulations. Since he was told that the examination would test his cumulative knowledge in the field of criminal justice, Olsson decided to enroll in a review course to refresh his memory of his past work in the program.
Toward the end of the semester, one of the professors who was conducting the review course undertook to describe to his class the criteria that would be used in the grading of the upcoming examination. Professor Kim apparently intended to inform his students that, in addition to attaining an over-all average score of 2.8 points on the examination, they would be required to score three out of a possible five points on each of four of the five examination questions answered. In the course of relating this information, however, Professor Kim misspoke, stating: "You must have at least three out of five questions " (emphasis supplied). This uncorrected misstatement, according to Olsson, left him and several of his classmates with the impression that they could achieve a passing grade on the examination by scoring at least three points on only three of the five questions. As a consequence, Olsson was unpleasantly surprised when he learned that, although his over-all average score exceeded 2.8, he had nevertheless failed the examination because he had received passing scores on only three rather than four of the five questions he had answered.
Believing that the outcome was unfair, Olsson petitioned the academic appeals committee of the college for a reconsideration of his grade. He thought himself aggrieved because he had budgeted his time during the examination in such a way as to maximize his chances of achieving a passing score on three of the five questions. Had he known that he would be required to perform acceptably on four questions, Olsson asserted, he would have allocated his efforts more evenly and might therefore have passed the examination. The academic appeals committee, however, declined to change Olsson's test score to a "pass", concluding that it would be improper to do so in view of the fact that he had failed the examination under the uniformly applied criteria. Nevertheless, in the interest of fairness, the committee offered to expunge the results of Olsson's examination and permit Olsson to retake it without prejudice to his right to sit for the test a second time should he fail again. 1
Finding this offer to be unacceptable, Olsson commenced the instant article 78 proceeding in an effort to compel the college to award him a diploma on the strength of his existing examination score. Since he had relied on Professor Kim's classroom statements in allocating his time during the examination and had "passed" the test under the criteria delineated in those statements, Olsson contended that the college should be estopped from applying the higher standard, which had resulted in his failing grade. Both the trial court and the Appellate Division accepted this argument and ordered the college to award Olsson a diploma in his chosen field nunc pro tunc. Both courts stressed that there existed no written regulations governing grading criteria at the time that Olsson took the examination, 2 and both courts concluded that the college rather than the individual student should bear the ultimate responsibility for Professor Kim's unfortunate "slip-of-the-tongue". We disagree.
In reversing the determinations below, we are mindful that this case involves more than a simple balancing of equities among various competing commercial interests. While it is true that in the ordinary case, a principal must answer for the misstatements of his agent when the latter is clothed with a mantle of apparent authority (see, e. g., Phillips v. West Rockaway Land Co., 226 N.Y. 507, 124 N.E. 87), such hornbook rules cannot be applied mechanically where the "principal" is an educational institution and the result would be to override a determination concerning a student's academic qualifications. Because such determinations rest in most cases upon the subjective professional judgment of trained educators, the courts have quite properly exercised the utmost restraint in applying traditional legal rules to disputes within the academic community (see, e. g., Board of Curators, Univ. of Mo. v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78, 98 S.Ct. 948, 55 L.Ed.2d 124; Matter of Sofair v. State Univ. of N. Y. Upstate Med. Center Coll. of Medicine, 54 A.D.2d 287, 388 N.Y.S.2d 453, revd. on other grounds 44 N.Y.2d 475, 406 N.Y.S.2d 276, 377 N.E.2d 730; Matter of Bonwitt v. Albany Med. Center School of Nursing, 77 Misc.2d 269, 353 N.Y.S.2d 82; Balogun v. Cornell Univ., 70 Misc.2d 474, 333 N.Y.S.2d 838; cf. James v. Board of Educ., 42 N.Y.2d 357, 397 N.Y.S.2d 934, 366 N.E.2d 1291).
This judicial reluctance to intervene in controversies involving academic standards is founded upon sound considerations of public policy. When an educational institution issues a diploma to one of its students, it is, in effect, certifying to society that the student possesses all of the knowledge and skills that are required by his chosen discipline. In order for society to be able to have complete confidence in the credentials...
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