Wednesday, 15th of April 2020

To the LSE Directorate,

We greatly appreciate your response to our previous email, listing additional reasons for the actions taken by LSE and recognise that this is not only a challenging time for LSE students but also for the staff. However, further to your response we would like to point out additional reasons in favour of a ‘no-detriment’ policy. First, we want to highlight that this is not merely a personal opinion of ours, but something that finds wide support within the LSE community. As of Monday 13th of April, we have collected well over 1000 signatures in support of LSE introducing a ‘no-detriment’ policy.

We do not agree with parts of the reasoning stated in your response to us and in the email “Coronavirus update, 8 April” sent to all students of LSE.

1. Many of the problems that arise with COVID-19 cannot be solved with extensions, they are therefore not sufficient as a supporting tool. For example, the inequality in resources for take-home examination and the inability of creating a quiet workplace will not go away with a short extension.
2. The “approach driven by flexibility, equity and compassion” is highly intransparent. It allows for strong inequality in treatment if there is not a comprehensible set of rules open to the public.
3. For many students, a deferral is out of question. On the one hand, many do not have the capacity or resources to study until August or even for another year. Further, many of the issues present today will remain then.
4. The choice offered to accept the dissatisfactory conditions of the current academic year or to defer to the next assessment window is thereby a lose-lose situation for many students.
    

We recognise that LSE has highly varied patterns of assessment, but they are not uniquely so. Of the 24 members of the Russell Group, 21 have implemented comprehensive no-detriment policies, adapted to their specific circumstances. Only Leeds University, Queen’s University Belfast and LSE are yet to implement them. Many of these universities will also have highly diverse assessment landscapes - LSE could learn from their approaches. 

When this academic year has passed and we evaluate how we handled this crisis as the LSE community, we would want to be proud to have done all that we could to create a fair and equal environment for all students and staff. A “no-detriment” policy will enable us to do this.

We are sending a copy of this letter to all who have signed the petition.

Yours sincerely,

Anton Schultz                         Hazel Boyd
Msc Political Theory               Msc Political Theory

Felix Westerén                        Philip Bessermann
Msc Political Theory               Msc Political Theory