EASTON, Pa. — Graduate student Megan Thode wasn’t happy about the C-plus she received for one class, saying the mediocre grade kept her from getting her desired degree and becoming a licensed therapist — and, as a result, cost her $1.3 million in lost earnings.
Now Thode is suing her professor and Lehigh University in Bethlehem, claiming monetary damages and seeking a grade change.
Comments
This lawsuit is utterly without merit. One earns one's grade, and if that grade is inadequate, the student has no-one to blame but herself. As to her losing earnings, how can one compute that? I hope the legal system tells her where to put her lawsuit.
Did you read the whole story? I think that maybe the issue of the student's views on gay marriage v. the professor's may be what prompted the judge to take the case. That is, the possibility that something other than the student's class performance affected the grade. Otherwise, it does seem a bit absurd.
What rubbish. I am sure every student who receives a lousy grade can find some social point on which to disagree with the prof, thereby giving rise to a lawsuit. Gay marriage, abortion, birth control, religion, politics come to mind.
It is all so UNFAIR...whine, snivel, gripe...I want that degree so I can make MILLIONS!
I knew that sooner or later I would absolutely agree with you on *Something* (let's have this be the only time, though.)
So true, if grades become political then its easy to sue under false pretenses. The problem with this suit is that grades like this are recorded continually, if the records still exist the professor can provide them as proof of the grade. This suit shows me that 1) our legal system is way out of whack when you can sue for something inane like this and 2) that the coddled generation coming up is going to be causing more kinds of trouble than we might think.
Take the class over? Was that an option? Please stop this shifting of blame. "I failed and it's your fault."
I wonder if her other instructors regret some of the high grades they gave her. There is a lot of pressure on schools and instructors to give good grades to keep classes full and tuition flowing.
There is a great deal of uncertaintly in this case, given this account of it.
It sounds like she got a zero on "class participation" part of her grade,
which is a VERY subjective part of one's grade -- here it was 25% of the total
grade (thus, even if she had an A for her coursework or exams,
the professor could have arbitrarily given her a C for the course).
Her professor says she behaved "unprofessionally" in the class, which may or may not be true,
but that can be a very subjective opinion as well (things can go all sorts of ways).
If it were not for the participation grade, it sounds like she would have gotton a high grade.
A lawsuit for $2 million though sounds like pure narcissistic gold-digging. The remedy for this
is not a civil lawsuit, but a university redress procedure in which she must take the
course again from someone else or demonstrate competence in some other way
(say, by examination).
Professors as a group are no better, or worse, than any other comparable group.
They are neither automatically right or wrong in what they do.
We wonder whether the professor was tenure-track or adjunct.
The article is really quite incomplete. No surprise, it's AP.
Depends on the class, if the subject REQUIRED class participation of a certain level, especially at the degree level we are talking here, then it's going to be a major part. Every class I took the syllabus was reviewed first up and the professors always stressed participation.
After doing a minute's worth of searching, there is MUCH more information in a Canadian newspaper (so much for the Associated Press, our source for national news), and it's completely clear that this person's case has no real basis. The more details one hears about this the less one has any respect or sympathy for the plaintiff.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/13/shes-literally-lost-a-career-woman-files-1-3-million-lawsuit-against-university-for-giving-her-a-c/
I read the article in the National Post. It contained no new information from the article above. It just reported the facts in very snide, and decidedly bias way. The bottom line is this girl should have been offered a retake for the course. As noted in an earlier post, 25% of a grade based on a totally subjective opinion is extraordinarily high. If her grades have been consistently As, there is a conflict with this course. Many courses that actually take place in the field offer retakes for students who do not achieve the required grade.
The professor should never have been allowed to make 25% of the grade subjectively based on "participation." Even if the student was totally unprofessional, she obviously knew the material and did the work, since she would have had to earn 100% on every other aspect of the course to lose 25% and still get a C.
Licensure programs kick you out of the program if just one grade falls below a B, so this one professor's subjective opinion of "participation" really did cost the student her career. That's why the judge didn't dismiss the suit outright.
The fact that the teacher "testified that while she believes marriage is between a man and a woman, she would never allow her personal views to influence her treatment of students" does beg the question, "Why is she discussing her views on gay marriage in the first place?". It suggests that there could be a personal judgment MIGHT be taking place. Such things are known to happen. It's not out of the realm of possibility.
This is just another example of a generation of ppl who cannot take responsibility for their own actions. If showing up for class & acting professional was part of it, well the student should have followed the class instructions. Another waste of taxpayers money on a frivilous lawsuit.