October 22, 2003
Suing your Professor
My colleague, Dennis Jerz (who runs the great Literacy Weblog) passed along a fascinating Yahoo news story this morning about a student who sued his professor for getting a B- on a test. The suit actually stems from a grade change that was made during a conversation in the prof's office (reduced to an F for allegedly changing the answers before arguing for an A). The student wants his grade restored to a B+ in the class. He also wants $50,000....
There are large cultural problems evident here: the gross sense of entitlement among some students; the litigious culture we live in; the lack of communication or flexibility between faculty and students; the monolithic role of the test in learning. But for me the issue is one of precident: if this student wins, and more students take this litigious route, schools will respond by adopting clunky policies and the relationships between students and teachers will change for the worse. The relationship will turn hostile (or more hostile than it already is) and the pathway of communication will get mired in a minefield of policies and procedures. Imagine a day when a Biology teacher has to get "academic malpractice insurance." Or when a supervisor has to be present during office hour visits. Imagine having to use "standardized" tests in every class. The mind boggles.
While it seems ludicrous for a student to sue over a B- grade, one of the assumptions that lurks behind it is the notion that teachers are accountable for their student's grades and a court of law can enforce it. The concept of "accountability" -- something of a buzzword regarding education since President Bush took office -- is becoming a dominant ideology, despite its vagueness. I understand the logic, but it is consumer-oriented. Maybe I'm biased, but I think holding a prof accountable for a student's failure is sort of like holding McDonald's accountable for burning a patron's lap if she spills hot coffee on it. By the same token, can I be sued if a student has a hangover and flunks my exam?
While it is true that education should provide results that can be quantified, education is an endeavor of quality of learning not quantity of informaton received. I'm not sure we will ever settle on a fair way of guaging accountability. But as George Boggs summarily put it in his article, "Accepting Responsibility for Student Learning," we are entering into a paradigm shift in academic culture, one that moves away from the "instruction paradigm" (where teachers are only accountable for teaching well) toward the "learning paradigm" (where they become accountable for students actually learning from it). This explains the rise in legalistic syllabi with long lists of "learning objectives" which become measured through specific assignments and tests. While there is a degree of "cart leading the horse" (or even self-fulfilling prophesy) involved here, there are valid reasons for this move and it makes logical sense to everyone involved. But there is a degree to which "learners" are conceived as "consumers" and this might be one of the reasons that students start going to court over grade changes. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
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Actually, that litigious valdedictorian story is pretty complicated! As I recall, the student got an A for a physical education course that she never attended due to her medical condition, but because that course was not an AP course, the A actually hurt her GPA, so she wanted it removed from her record. But it does look like her administration tried to change the rules in the middle of the year in order to defend the spirit of the law against the letter of the law.
Malpractice insurance for professors would not be a bad idea. The above argument would presume the privledge and omnipotence of academes. I am currently in a situation where a professor lopped my grade at every subjective opportunity to give me a C. I found this Blog searching for a lawyer. Seems the prof also called my advisor. Professors are not above malice and should be called to task it.
Thanks for your comment, Eric. You raise an important point -- that there is a sense of "privlege and omnipotence" that counterbalances the student's "sense of entitlement" that I mentioned in my entry -- and you're right to remind us that teacher's aren't above the law or civilized behavior. Good point!
Sorry Matthew -- I don't feel qualified to give legal advice. Seek the help of an attorney.
I believe the writer of this article is probably a Liberal Arts professor who is addicted to vagueness in his/her grading methods. Let's be honest..professors do grade students on whether or not they like them. Quite honestly there is more room for this grading method in Liberal Arts classes than in the sciences such as Math, Engineering, Chemistry. Liberal Arts teachers seem to be a very vindictive lot in general. If your point of view doesn't agree with their own, if you ask questions they cannot answer, or the teacher is racially or otherwise biased against a student, the professor is almost sure to try every means to fail the student. There is usually nothing a student can do, but accept a failing grade from the unfair professor. What college professors seem to fail to understand is that they are in the consumer market because students pay for their education. When a student is forced to pay to retake the same class to graduate simply because the professor did not like the student for whatever reason, I believe the student should be able to sue. Because the grade given by an unfair professor is a standard for judging a person's competency, a failing grade for no good reason really amounts to defamation and libel. These two situations are subject to suit. Professors who give bad grades because a student does not show up to class even though the student aces the exams, because the student asks a question that they cannot answer, because they feel all students should take a certain class twice to properly 'understand' the material, because the student is of a certain race or gender or both, because the university college feels that this student will pay to stay and failing them will guarantee revenues from this student who will repeat the course, or because they are retiring and they can get away with being unfair, all of these cases are ruining a student's life, and causing undo expense for no good reason. Professors should be accountable for this sort of malicious grading. I believe professors found guilty of this behavior should be jailed. This goes especially because universities are consumer entities where a product, education or a degree, is obtained. They should be subject to scrutiny just like any other consumer entity. Besides all of this, I have seen too many professors who take too much joy in toying with someone else's life in this manner. These people should not go unpunished for making people dig in their pockets to repeat courses for which they have proven knowledge.
Here's and interesting "story". A university offers a professional doctoral program. The university "opens" distance type education sites to help fill the need in that profession. Lectures are viewed online because they digitize them and are available to "distance" students. A local college is made available to congregate in order to administrate examinations, student presentations.... blah, blah. All lectures are via streaming video from the main campus with a two hour delay. Everytime representatives were asked on how the distance students are doing compared to the main campus students the response was "it's all equal" or "we average everything" or some politically correct blurb. During a streaming video lecture one professor "let the cat out of the bag". This professor stated that distance sites are not up to par. I think the school did not want that piece of information to get out. The program is extremely demanding, rightfully so. If the week had 8 days, then one would study 8 days a week. The school did state that "eyes are upon them" because of this type of educational format to see if it could be used elsewhere. The school saves TONS of money by increasing enrollment without adding faculty. Question: If this distance thing isn't working.... who is liable? Tuition is not inexpensive, loss of income during school and the mental anguish (severe) the students have been enduring, is it a fair expectation? Has anyone ever litigated against a university? The litigation would probably involve dozens of students.
I have a history teacher who is very unfair. For one he asks at least fifteen questions on his examinations that do not come from the book, and of which are ambiguous to understand. At first I thought that I was doing something wrong in the class, but then I started to talk to other students who displayed some of the same concerns about this professor. So, to prove this theory, I studied for days before my last test. I learned and re-learned almost every key fact possible, and despite my efforts I received a grade of B-. I'm not sure what I can do about this problem other than to just acdept the b and move on. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Jerry, you might try talking to your professor.
Maybe the problem is that you're approaching your education as an exercise in memorizing facts, while perhaps your professor is asking you to go beyond facts to demonstrate that you understand key underlying forces or patterns that manifest themselves in the form of particular facts.
I'm not a history teacher, but when I teach literature to students, I find that some expect to get full credit simply for being able to summarize the plot. But for me, the plot is just the beginning. Perhaps your professor feels the same way about facts.
In a similar way, if I memorized the answers to all the long division questions my math teacher gave me (345/25, 2323/235, 422/23 etc.), but never actually learned how to do long division, I'd be lost on a final exam that showed me new problems, whose answers I hadn't memorized (e.g. 634/15).
I'm a student at a state university, and I tutor a very bright disabled student in classes in my major, which is also one of her two majors. She is in the sciences and is earning A's and B's in advanced level classes. She has failed one lower level science class numerous times. I felt there was something fishy, since she works so hard in her studies.
Today I came to find out that every year, the university we go to compiles a list of the classes in which more than 50% of the students failed in the last year. There are about 50 classes in which over 1/2 the students failed. These are core curriculum requirements, such as English, math, etc., and the list includes lower level core classes in biology, chemistry and physics. The kicker is that these same 50 classes have been on the list for the last 10 years.
Clearly teaching is occurring, but education is not. The person who told me about this list said that any professor who regularly fails more than 10% of his or her students is not doing the job.
My own experience has been that most professors are the U are caring teachers who use every tool at their disposal to ensure that the majority of the class learns and that anyone who works hard to excel, can do so.
I personally think this list of 50 classes is shocking and basically a scandal waiting to happen. So far there is not one person at the U who has taken any action to reverse the trend.
I abhor the idea of students suing teachers. I can imagine all manner of poor students wanting teachers to be held responsible, while they, as irresponsible students, abuse a system of legal redress which entertains such lawsuits.
Yet I would like to have some ideas on how to create pressure on Provost and Deans to hold the worst teachers who are failing legions of students accountable. Certainly, you can't revoke tenure, but do these professors have to get raises?
America is falling behind in the sciences, and I just got a little piece of the answer to "why?" today.
If you have any ideas for me, I'd surely appreciate hearing them.
It's easy to go off half-cocked at this story, but I noticed the "cheating" took place when the student wrote notes on his test while in a conference with the instructor about the original B- grade. The instructor then alleged that this constituted an attempt by the student to change his answers. Sounds like it's a bit more complicated than, say, the litigious valedictorian story that was making the rounds a couple of months ago.