Academic Freedom

As pointed out by this Court in Garcia v. Faculty Admission Committee,

Loyola School of Theology, it is a freedom granted to institutions of
higher learning which is thus given a wide sphere of authority
certainly extending to the choice of students. If such institution of
higher learning can decide who can and who cannot study in it, it
certainly can also determine on whom it can confer the honor and
distinction of being its graduates.

Where it is shown that the conferment of an honor or distinction was obtained

through fraud, a university has the right to revoke or withdraw the honor or
distinction it has thus conferred. This freedom of a university does not
terminate upon the graduation of a student, as the Court of Appeals held.
For it is precisely the graduation of such a student that is in question.

Wide indeed is the sphere of autonomy granted to institutions of higher

learning, for the constitutional grant of academic freedom, to quote again
from Garcia v. Faculty Admission Committee, Loyola School of Theology, is
not to be construed in a niggardly manner or in a grudging fashion.

If the conferment of a degree is founded on error or fraud, the Board of Regents is also
empowered, subject to the observance of due process, to withdraw what it has granted
without violating a students rights; The pursuit of academic excellence is the
universitys concernit should be empowered, as an act of self-defense, to take
measures to protect itself from serious threats to its integrity.

In investigating charges of plagiarism against a student who has already graduated,

the University of the Philippines could not be considered to be seeking to discipline
her but seeking to protect its academic integrity by withdrawing from such graduate
an academic degree she obtained through fraud.

The rule in this jurisdiction since Garcia vs. Loyola School of Theology, reiterated in
Tangonan vs. Pao, has been to uphold the rule that admission to an institution
of higher learning is discretionary upon the school and that such an
admission is a mere privilege, rather than a right, on the part of the
student. In Ateneo de Manila University vs. Capulong this Court cited with
approval the formulation made by Justice Felix Frankfurter of the essential
freedoms subsumed in the term academic freedom encompassing not only the
freedom to determine * * * on academic grounds who may teach, what may be
taught (and) how it shall be taught, but likewise who may be admitted to

study. We have thus sanctioned its valid invocation by a school in rejecting

students who are academically delinquent, or a laywoman seeking admission to a
seminary, or students violating School Rules on Discipline.

Another observation. In Non vs. Dames II,

185 SCRA 523 [1990].

abandoned our earlier ruling in Alcuaz vs. PSBA

we have already

161 SCRA 7 [1988].

(that enrolment of

a student is a semester-to-semester contract, and that the school may not be

compelled to renew the contract) by recognizing instead the right of a student
to be enrolled for the entire period required in order to complete his
course. We have also stressed that the contract between the school and the
student, imbued, as it is, with public interest, is not an ordinary contract.