I have a PhD student who took an English course of mine. Throughout the course they have to write a series of tasks. One of the drafts he handed into me had some plagiarism. I saw him in my office, explained what he had done wrong, told him he had to cite and paraphrase in order not to plagiarise.

Anyway, he has handed in the final portfolio and one task is about 80% from wikipedia (a crime as it is for a PhD student!) and one task is about 80% copied from another student.

The policy of the university is that I inform the Graduate School who inform the Disciplinary Committee and he will have to go to them and argue his case. It is most likely that he will be suspended for a period of time, maybe a month or at most a semester.

The dilemma is that in doing this, his supervisor will find out. Over the last few days, after I called him to tell him that I am failing him and sending informing the Graduate School, he has been BEGGING me not to do it. He wants me to fail him and let him take the course again but not inform the Grad School. Here are his reasons…

He is from Mainland China, He has given up a good job in China to come and study at this university. His is financially in debt not only to his family but also his former workplace who are paying for him to study here. If his supervisor finds out he will "sack" him and he will forced be to go back to the Mainland. This will be very humiliating for him to tell his family, friends and former workplace and it will basically be, he says, the end of his life as he will never be able to get into another university. He is emotionally isolated here and has no one to talk to.

I am very very worried about his mental state. In Hong Kong there have been a spate of Mainland students committing suicide and from talking to him, I could imagine that if the above all happens, he could be one of them.

So, basically the dilemma is what to do. I believe in punishment fitting the crime. Him getting suspended for a period of time I am happy with. I believe that is apt punishment. Him getting kicked out of HK and having his life ruined doesn't not fit the crime I believe. I believe that if he DOES goes home while his life will not be ruined he will find it very difficult to get into another university and basically that will alter the course of his life and all the work he has done up to now will be wasted. But I also think that if I compromise on this, I don’t in fact have any standards as a professional. Standards should be fixed even for the difficult cases. But maybe it is ethically wrong to uphold those standards in this context.

What do you all think?