John Karras: Clarification of the Outcome of the 2016 Concordia Case
The charges against John Karras arising from the 2016 Concordia exam-related case were resolved through a conditional discharge. CTV News reports that no conviction was registered, and CBC News reports that there is no criminal record resulting from this case.
I’m publishing this clarification because the original news stories about the allegations remain online. Anyone researching my name should also have access to the resolution, which both CBC News and CTV News have added to their coverage.
What the news updates say
CTV News added the following update:
“The charges against Karras were resolved through a conditional discharge with no conviction registered.”
CBC News also updated its article to explain that the charges were resolved several months after publication through a conditional discharge, and that I do not have a criminal record as a result of this case.
Both updates were added by the publications themselves, to their own original articles.
Was there a conviction in this case?
No conviction was registered, according to CTV News’s update. CBC’s update likewise states that this case did not result in a criminal record.
The precise outcome was a conditional discharge. This clarification does not describe the case as an acquittal or a dismissal of the charges.
Why this clarification is here
An original headline about charges does not tell readers how a case ended. My purpose in publishing this page is to make the reported outcome easy to find alongside the original coverage.
Anyone preparing a background summary, professional profile, or article about me should consult the updates from both news organizations and include the resolution when discussing this case.
In my own words
I did it. In 2016 I was paid to sit an exam in another student’s place. I knew it was wrong when I agreed to it, and I knew it was wrong while I was doing it.
I am not going to write the careful version of this. There is no version of it where I misunderstood the rules.
What I told myself at the time was that it was a first-year personal finance elective — not a course anyone’s safety rested on, not a qualification anyone would be harmed by. I believed that then. It does not hold up, and I would not accept it from a student who brought it to me today. “This one doesn’t count” is the reasoning that gets you to do the thing you would have refused outright a year earlier. I was young and I needed the money, and I let that argue on my behalf. That is the whole of it.
What I actually did was sell an advantage to the one person who could afford to buy it. Everyone else in that room had to earn the grade. That is the part I did not think about at the time, and the part I have not stopped thinking about since.
The only repair I have found that means anything is the opposite of the thing I did. I teach. For ten years I have sat with students who are behind and embarrassed about it, explained what the lecture did not, and tried to be the kind of help that is available to any student who asks rather than the kind that goes to whoever can pay the most for it. That is not a grand gesture. It is just the work, and I have done it every year since.
I am not asking anyone to weigh one against the other. Ten years does not cancel a decision; it only gives you somewhere to put it. But if you have found the 2016 story and you are trying to decide what to make of me, this is what I would want you to know: I did what it says, I have never pretended otherwise, and what I have done with every year since is the only argument I would make.
John Karras