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Comment by AYBABTME | Hacker News Reader

I'm going against the general idea here, but the college issued a statement:

http://www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/home

Basically, they say Ahmed did more than just what is reported in the article, and they can't publicly say what he did - because that's private info about Ahmed that they're legally obliged to protect.

Now I'm not taking a position in favor of the college or in favor of Ahmed. I'm just saying, it's not all black (or white). The National Post article is biased and we're missing some info. We should remember about that before going crazy on the witch hunt.

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Perspective: That bit about protecting his privacy is the same sort of excuse Ortiz's office gave in their initial response to Aaron's death.

Might be used as an excused but they're indeed not authorized to disclose a student's mischiefs to the public, or any other info as it stands.

The site is now 403'ing but I'm really curious what else he could have done and didn't admit to for his story. Personally, this all makes sense right up until the point where the president of Skytech says Ahmed should not have run his tests but that he understands Ahmed was not being malicious. But then Skytech wants him expelled, and the university wants to protect Skytech's interests? Expelling him would get the story out and accomplish literally the opposite of saving face, even with his inability to disclose details.

Based on other stories of bureaucratic ignorance it's easy to jump on the administrative / cover-up blame train, but something about this doesn't quite mesh, and the fact that the story's only alibis are 1) Ahmed and 2) a generic students' rights organization makes it difficult to digest.

I graduated from CS at Dawson and know the faculty quite well. I had the same exact reaction as most people when reading the article up until the point where I saw that 14/15 of the faculty members voted in favour of expelling the student. That right there makes me wonder what else he did.

The faculty told me that there are other things that caused this and they are unable to discuss them with me.

I wish it were possible to get that information but I know them and I trust them.

I also graduated from CS at Dawson. I've been told that Taz and François Paradis know each other quite well and this is probably the result of said friendship. But this is all heresay.

That's interesting. I went to see them today and it didn't seem like they were coerced into expelling him. They seem to really have something that makes them strongly believe it was necessary. Gah, I'd love to know.

It might not be black or white. The kind of people who will abusively kick someone out to cover their ass are the same kind of people who will bend the truth later.

We just don't know.

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