Senior Multimedia Journalist
joshua.seemungal@guardian.co.tt
Fifteen years after submitting his original PhD thesis in government to the University of the West Indies (UWI) at St Augustine for examination, well-known criminologist Daurius Figueira still does not know if he has passed or failed, undermining his academic career.
The ordeal has also denied the author and researcher the opportunity to earn a living as a lecturer and a professor. Figueira’s original thesis failed, but then the University Senate ruled in 2022 that it should be re-examined.
A Senate Appeal Committee found that a university-appointed committee did not have the power to fail the thesis. “The last email I have from UWI St Augustine is from January 8, where they told me it (my thesis) is finished examining, but I haven’t gotten any reply since then if I passed or failed.
“They failed it in 2012, and I petitioned the University Senate. The last day I worked at UWI was the 31st of December 2014. So from the 1st of January, 2015, I have been unemployed,” said Figueira, a former lecturer in UWI’s Behavioural Sciences Department.
On January 18, 2013, UWI St Augustine Campus Registrar Gene Francis wrote to Figueira to inform him that the Campus Appointments Committee—in a meeting on December 13, 2022—agreed not to grant him tenure.
“The committee was not convinced of the scholarly nature of your work and that it represents ‘a mark of distinction.’ The committee was also advised of the failure of your PhD thesis,” the letter stated.
Despite rumours of political interference under a past government, Figueira opted against making accusations against those who may be responsible. He just wants a resolution to the matter, so he can finally move on with his life.
When contacted for comment, UWI’s head of Political Science Dr Indera Rampersad said she could not discuss department business with the media, as student affairs are confidential.
Career destruction
In February 2012, UWI St Augustine’s Senior Assistant Registrar of Graduate Studies and Research, at the time, Deborah-Smythe, wrote to Figueira.
Her letter stated that the committee under the power delegated by the Senate under State 25.2(f) deemed the thesis failed.
Statue 25.2(f) states that degrees shall only be awarded on the recommendation of a Joint Committee of the Council and the Senate appointed for the purpose of regulating, subject to these Statutes and the Ordinances, the admission of persons to the university and courses of study in the university and their continuance or discontinuance in such courses and the conditions qualifying for admission to the various titles, degrees, distinctions, and other awards offered by the university.
“The board appointed a Sub-Committee of the Board of Graduate Studies and Research, which met to consider your case as a result of the lack of consensus among the examiners of your PhD thesis. The Sub-Committee, after having carefully considered the matter and all documents applicable thereto, concluded that the thesis did not merit the award of a PhD degree from the University of the West Indies,” the February 14, 2012 letter stated.
In response, Figueira, through his thesis supervisor, Prof Hamid Ghany, petitioned the Privy Council in July 2012. However, after some time, it was determined by the Privy Council that there were no operationalised structures in place for the petition to be heard.
It recommended that the petition be made to the University Senate.
“Those who took the decision at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus that insisted that a hung panel of examiners results in a failed PhD thesis, did so with impunity strikingly similar to what obtained under the order of power of massa on the plantation during British colonial domination in the territory of a sovereign state that was framed by the traditions of liberal democracy,” Figueira wrote in his June 2022 petition to the Senate of the University of the West Indies, based in Jamaica.
“The failure of my PhD was followed by the destruction of my academic career, first with constructive dismissal and finally with dismissal on 31 December 2014. With dismissal from my post, I was unable to migrate in search of employment externally as I had no PhD,” he added.
In his petition to the University Senate, Figueira argued that an examiner was biased. He accused the examiner of ruling his thesis substandard based on the examiner’s alleged ‘rejection of the anti-Enlightenment discourse of Michael Foucault and the validity of Simboonath Capildeo’s speeches.’
According to the criminologist, he was denied the opportunity to be heard by the subcommittee appointed to rule on his thesis, resulting in a lack of procedural fairness.
The chairman of the Campus Committee for Graduate Studies and Research later decided that Figueira should revise and resubmit his thesis for re-examination. As stated in a letter written by Charles-Smythe, Senior Assistant Registrar, Figueira was required to submit four copies of the revised thesis within 18 months of April 7, 2009 (the letter’s date).
However, Figueira said he did not receive the letter until August 4. After Figueira re-submitted the thesis, Prof Ghany, then dean of UWI’s Faculty of Social Sciences, wrote several times to the Senior Assistant Registrar of Graduate Studies and Research, expressing concern.
Following a petition to UWI’s Appeal Committee of Senate, at the university’s regional headquarters in Jamaica, it was ruled to set aside the decision taken by the Board for Graduate Studies and Research and to appoint a new panel of examiners to examine the original thesis submitted in 2009.
However, despite the ruling, his ordeal, approaching its 16th year, continues.