My amazement is that this was in a Sociology class. That is typically what you talk about society today and yesterday. This professor needs to fail this student for just being dumb.
You don't understand.
At American universities today, it is the students who have the power to fail the professor.
“This professor needs to fail this student for just being dumb.”
“Dumb” is a mere surface condition while “ignorant” cuts clear to the bone and this “student” has fully qualified for the latter label. “Ignorant” indicates a willful condition of resistance to education and, in a just world, would allow the professor to submit the student’s name to the university for elimination from school. Unfortunately, it is Columbia and the real/just world dares not to intrude there.