Academic Freedom As pointed out by this Court in Garcia v. Faculty Admission Committee, Loyola School of Theology, it is a freedom granted to institutions of higher learning which is thus given a wide sphere of authority certainly extending to the choice of students. If such institution of higher learning can decide who can and who cannot study in it, it certainly can also determine on whom it can confer the honor and distinction of being its graduates. Where it is shown that the conferment of an honor or distinction was obtainedthrough fraud, a university has the right to revoe or withdraw the honor or distinction it has thus conferred. !his freedom of a university does not terminate upon the graduation of a student, as the Court of Appeals held. "or it is precisely the graduation of such a student that is in #uestion. Wide indeed is the sphere of autonomy granted to institutions of higher learning, for the constitutional grant of academic freedom, to #uote again from Garcia v. Faculty Admission Committee, Loyola School of Theology, is not to be construed in a niggardly manner or in a grudging fashion. If the conferment of a degree is founded on error or fraud, the Board of Regents is alsoempowered, subject to the observance of due process, to withdraw what it has granted without violating a students rights; The pursuit of academic excellence is the universitys concernit should be empowered, as an act of self-defense, to take measures to protect itself from serious threats to its integrity. In investigating charges of plagiarism against a student who has already graduated, the University of the Philippines could not be considered to be seeking to discipline her but seeking to protect its academic integrity by withdrawing from such graduate an academic degree she obtained through fraud. The rule in this jurisdiction since Garcia vs. Loyola School of Theology, reiterated in Tangonan vs. Pao, has been to uphold the rule that admission to an institution of higher learning is discretionary upon the school and that such an admission is a mere privilege, rather than a right, on the part of the student. In Ateneo de Manila University vs. Capulong this Court cited with approval the formulation made by Justice Felix Frankfurter of the essential freedoms subsumed in the term academic freedom encompassing not only the freedom to determine * * * on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught (and) how it shall be taught, but likewise who may be admitted to study. We have thus sanctioned its valid invocation by a school in rejecting students who are academically delinquent, or a laywoman seeking admission to a seminary, or students violating School Rules on Discipline. Another observation. In Non vs. Dames II, 185 SCRA 523 [1990]. we have already abandoned our earlier ruling in Alcuaz vs. PSBA161 SCRA 7 [1988]. (that enrolment ofa student is a semester-to-semester contract, and that the school may not be compelled to renew the contract) by recognizing instead the right of a student to be enrolled for the entire period required in order to complete his course. We have also stressed that the contract between the school and the student, imbued, as it is, with public interest, is not an ordinary contract.