Student takes Swinburne University to Supreme Court over expulsion

A legal stoush over a wrongly assigned grade has erupted between a nursing student and Swinburne University of Technology.

A wrongly assigned grade has led to a six-year court battle between a nursing student and Swinburne University of Technology.

A wrongly assigned grade has led to a six-year court battle between a nursing student and Swinburne University of Technology.

The epic legal stoush is continuing, with the Supreme Court ruling last month that the student can continue to challenge expulsion from the diploma he began in 2017.

Supreme Court judge Ian Irving granted the student an extension of time to apply for a judicial review, in part because there was “a reasonable apprehension of bias” from the university.

The bias included Swinburne staff deciding the student, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, should be excluded before a key meeting with him took place.

The student was excluded in 2018 following a charge of serious misconduct arising from an incident at Cabrini Hospital while he was on a placement. It was alleged the student had been threatening or intimidating and had engaged in conduct detrimental to the university’s reputation.

The student asked the university not to suspend him and said his behaviour was caused by mental health issues outside of his control. Medical records show he had frequent intrusive thoughts and dreams regarding his expulsion from the university.

The student’s dispute with the university started after he had a mark wrongly placed on his assessment notice. The final mark was not in the “mark” column but the “comment” column, leading to him making a complaint and asking for it to be corrected.

The university said it would be difficult for the mark to be adjusted but agreed to give him a letter clarifying the situation for future employees.

Around this time, concerns about the student’s behaviour were raised by Swinburne staff, particularly relating to the tone and frequency of his email communication with the university.

After the student was excluded, he appealed but the decision was upheld by the university, prompting him to ask for a judicial review on the basis that the decision was excessive, extreme and unfair, among other reasons.

The student believed he had been discriminated against on the basis of race and disability and claimed that the exclusion was reached as a result of false allegations relating to his mental health disability.

However, by this time, his application was more than 900 days out of date. The student argued the delay was due in part to the university refusing many of the 12 FOI applications he’d issued in order to access documents relating to his case, as well as Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

A Swinburne University spokesman said the university was unable to comment as the matter was before the courts.