The University of Liverpool has found itself under fire after sending out an anti-cheating notice prior to January exams that specifically targeted Chinese students.

“Unfortunately, each year, a number of international students breach the University’s rules around exams; this can be unintentional exam misconduct or intentional cheating. Students who and [sic] caught cheating (舞弊) in exams suffer serious consequences such as a mark of zero, suspension of 1 year or termination of studies,” reads the notice emailed to students on Monday by the university’s Student Welfare and Guidance department.

Apparently believing that the Chinese translation in that paragraph might be too subtle for readers to pick up on, at the very end of the email, the department clarified: “We find that our Chinese students are usually unfamiliar with the word ‘cheating’ in English and we therefore provide this translation: 舞弊.”

In fact, that translation is incorrect. “舞弊” (wubi) refers to official fraud. The word that the university was looking for is “作弊” (zuobi). However, most Chinese students were much more concerned with the implication that they are all a bunch of cheats, launching a change.org petition calling for the university to make a public apology over the discriminatory notice.

The university has since issued three separate apologies. One in an email from the International Advice and Guidance team which claimed that Chinese students really had expressed confusion in the past over the English word “cheating”:

“The inclusion of the Chinese translation was certainly not intended to give the impression that the exam misconduct advice was aimed at Chinese students. We have had feedback from Chinese students in the past regarding the terminology so were addressing this to ensure our advice was clear.”

Another apology was tweeted out by the Student Welfare Advice and Guidance department, claiming that its team had not intended to “single out any particular group of students.”

Apologies for any upset or misunderstanding which may have been caused this morning. We communicate exam conduct information to all our students before each assessment period. — Student Welfare Advice and Guidance (@LivUniSWAG) January 14, 2019

Our @LivUniSWAG team work with our international student community to offer help & support throughout their time at Liverpool. The intention was not to single out any particular group of students, but to make the information as accessible as possible for our student community. — Student Welfare Advice and Guidance (@LivUniSWAG) January 14, 2019

That line of reasoning was not well received by Twitter users:

I find that our British staff are unfamiliar with the word’种族歧视’ in Chinese so I also want to translate it: racism. — Lora Lyu (@lora_lyu) January 15, 2019

The obvious implication was either that Chinese are shifty cheaters or too stupid to understand English… How backwards is that? And all we get is a half-serious Twitter apology, ridiculous — amber (@puyunfan3675) January 14, 2019

There is no misunderstanding, simply prejudice and racism. Anyone admitted to UoL meets minimum English language requirement. Claiming that Chinese student do not understand the meaning of ‘cheating’ is equal to saying there is a loophole in the admissions process. — kevinwinsper (@kevinwinsper) January 14, 2019

Finally, University of Liverpool Vice-Chancellor Janet Beer emailed out a full apology, vowing to take “appropriate action” so that something like this would never happen again.

Dear students, I am writing to apologise following the email issued to all international students from our international advice and guidance team yesterday. There was a paragraph in this email which caused significant offence and has upset our students, parents and partner organisations. This was a mistake and is not representative of the high regard in which the University holds its Chinese students. It was wholly inappropriate and I apologise wholeheartedly for the offence it has caused. We at the University of Liverpool are extremely proud to be an international university and are equally proud of our strong links with China and XJTLU. We value and respect cultural diversity and are extremely grateful that so many international students come to study with us and enrich our campus and city. We take full responsibility for the mistake made and will review our procedures and take appropriate action to ensure nothing of this nature happens again. My heartfelt apologies once more for the offence caused.