Family Puts Glasgow University on Notice Over Handling of Ethan Scott Brown's Degree
The family of Ethan Scott Brown says the University of Glasgow "will be held to account" over how it handled his degree in the months before his death. The warning was delivered by the family's solicitor, Aamer Anwar, after a meeting with Scotland's education secretary in Edinburgh on 7 October 2026, according to The Guardian.
Brown was 23. He had studied geography at Glasgow and was due to graduate in December 2024. In September 2024, the university told him one course had no grade, so he could not graduate with an honours degree, the standard classified degree. He took his own life on 13 December 2024, the day he had been due to graduate. His mother, Tracy Scott, found him dead in his bedroom that morning.
The 7 October meeting took place at St Andrew's House in Edinburgh between the family and education secretary Màiri McAllan. Anwar said the family had put the university on notice. McAllan offered to ask the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, the body that checks university standards and is investigating Glasgow, to meet the family. The family also welcomed McAllan's apology for her predecessor's September 2025 statement, which had implied acceptance of the university's position that Brown's case was an isolated incident.
Scott collected her son's degree posthumously, after his death. She has called for a fatal accident inquiry, a Scottish legal process to establish the facts around a death. The family has settled a civil court action, a private legal claim, with the university. The sum was undisclosed.
The university said it is "profoundly sorry" Brown took his own life and repeated its apology and sympathy to his family. After an internal investigation into assessment rules, it referred itself to the Scottish Funding Council, which funds universities and colleges. The Quality Assurance Agency carried out a targeted peer review, an outside check by other academics, which led to recommendations for action. The university said it fully accepted those recommendations and is on track to implement them. The Crown Office said the circumstances of Brown's death were being investigated by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Scotland's death-investigation and prosecution service. Separate reporting has stated Brown should have been awarded a 2:1, an upper-second-class grade, according to BBC.
The broader context here is that several different processes are running at once. A ministerial meeting does not decide legal responsibility. A settled civil claim does not stop regulatory checks. In my view, that is why the family's emphasis now sits on process: direct engagement with the quality regulator and pressure for an inquiry that can establish a public record.
