Maintaining academic integrity is important for today's institutions of higher learning and this involves academic staff responding to breaches by their students. Plagiarism by students (student plagiarism) continues to be an area of concern, especially with the use of the Internet to find, copy and, sometimes, pay for ready-made essays and assignments. This form of academic misconduct ultimately affects not only the students and academic staff, but also the reputation of the institution itself and the integrity of its awards. Despite the need for consistency in addressing student plagiarism, it appears that the responses of academic staff to student plagiarism remain varied and inconsistent. This paper seeks to systematically review the key findings from the literature over the past three decades on academic staff responses to student plagiarism in universities. Despite the research showing that academic staff appear to respond to student plagiarism in varied and inconsistent ways, the factors and reasons why they do so remain unclear. It is suggested that more research to better understand academic staff and their identities, perceptions and belief systems may help find workable solutions to address these inconsistencies.