Neurodiversity and academic integrity: toward epistemic plurality in a postplagiarism era

Academic misconduct policies can disadvantage neurodivergent students through ableist assessment design, surveillance technologies, and pedagogies of forced disclosure. In this narrative review, the intersection of neurodiversity and academic integrity in higher education was examined by analyzing 15 sources, using postplagiarism as a conceptual framing. Three themes emerged: (1) neurodivergent students face intersectional challenges when academic integrity frameworks misinterpret their cognitive differences as misconduct indicators; (2) educational technologies present a double impact: AI can improve accessibility, but detection software produces false positives disproportionately affecting neurodivergent students; and (3) competitive assessment practices foster environments where misconduct becomes more likely. Epistemic plurality is proposed as a framework to reconceptualize academic integrity beyond punitive approaches. Rather than standardizing knowledge expression, we can recognize that diverse cognitive styles enrich, rather than compromise, academic quality. Academic integrity must evolve beyond compliance-based models toward inclusive approaches that honour neurodiversity as human variation that enriches academic communities.