Posted on 02/13/2013 9:33:13 PM PST by rawhide
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.
A judge is hearing testimony in the case this week in Northampton County Court. Lehigh and the professor contend her lawsuit is without merit. Northampton County Judge Emil Giordano declined to dismiss the suit Wednesday, ruling that there was enough evidence for the suit to proceed.
Thode took the class in the fall of 2009. Her instructor,Amanda Eckhardt, testified this week that she stood by the grade,saying Thode failed to behave professionally and thus earned zero out of 25 points in class participation, bumping her down a full letter grade.
"I...believed she received the grade she earned," Eckhardt said.
The C-plus prevented Thode, an otherwise A student, from going on to the next class and advancing in her professional therapist studies.
Her attorney, Richard Orloski, argued that Eckhardt targeted Thode because she is an outspoken advocate for gay marriage.
Eckhardt 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. She said Thode had outbursts in class, did not participate appropriately, was emotionally unstable and failed to heed a warning letter.
Stephen Thode, the plaintiff's father and a longtime finance professor at Lehigh, testified on his daughter's behalf and said her participation score was highly irregular.
"I have never heard of a case, not just at Lehigh, where a student achieved a zero in class participation where they attended and participated in every class," he said
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
If it’s a case of the teacher with an attitude problem, I hope she wins. If not...oh well.
Because as we all know, the academic environment is VERY intolerant of liberal beliefs. [eyeroll]
She paid nothing for this class, it cost her nothing
She is a lesbian leftist with a victim mentality
Judge: "If you wanted a better grade, you should have studied harder. Case dismissed."
Finally. The very first woman to offer a serious challenge Sandra Fluke as Reigning Consummate Asshole Democrat Human Douchebag.
Hmmm....
Leave it daddy to get his pampered daughter a way out.
Then she needs to pay court costs, do time for a frivilous filing, apologize and slink back under the rock that birthed her.
I have seen several teachers try screwing students based on their politics or personality conflicts which is why I gave her the benefit of the doubt. But apparently should not have.
“She said Thode had outbursts in class, did not participate appropriately, was emotionally unstable and failed to heed a warning letter.”
Should be easy enough to verify all of this.
I'm kind of having trouble rooting for either one here....
I don't get you. Seems like you have to stand with the professor's right to conscientiously assign a grade.
I figure they both are telling the truth. Hey I know liberal professors screwed me in college just because they didn’t like me even reviewing a book that didn’t agree with their revisionist version of history. I mean a low grade because I dared review a book that said reconstruction of the South after the Civil War was a mistake.
So it does happen. But I didn’t sue them. My recollection is a lot of professors and a lot of students are jerks.
Is that Thode or Eckhardt?
I work in the mental health field and would seriously question the $1.3M income loss, particularly if she was going to be working at the Master’s level, and particularly considering managed care rates and the move to Obamacare. Story appears a scant spare on details.
sorry - should be sparse on details.
The story as written is murky, but how do you know Thode is a lesbian vs. an advocate for gay rights? Sympathy for gay rights is the very IN thing today. One doesn’t have to BE gay to be an advocate. All one has to be is 30ish or under.
And now the little darling will be completely unhireable, once any potential employer googles her name and finds out that she sues at the drop of a hat.
I can't believe this actually made it to court. Is she suing the professor or the university? If it's the professor, she ain't gonna get jack squat.
And one C+ won't ruin the GPA of a "straight A student".
Sounds like ideal therapist material.
Over a 40 year career, it is an estimated loss of about $32,500/yr, which is not unreasonable. But really, she just needs to take the course over again and make more of an effort. It isn’t like she’s paying for it, which is part of the problem.
It isn’t the GPA, it is the fact that she didn’t qualify to advance to the next level of courses. There is nothing to prevent her from retaking the course for a better grade, except her pride.
In my first year of college I had a prof who had a reputation as a liberal if not socialist/communist. The coarse was something on modern writings and world affairs, Lippmann, Marx, Hitler etc. In the final exam there was a grade important question about what was propaganda. My written answer was that most of the assignments we were given were propaganda. I was given an ‘A’ for the course and to this day remember the prof as a very fair person.
That’s what it sounded like, but you are probably right. It seems there was another article about this and I had a similar impression.
"Thode took the class in the fall of 2009".
So instead of taking her lumps and retaking the course (for FREE!), she's wasted 3 years on this preposterous lawsuit.
She'd be long graduated by now.
I was in class with a football player who had alreadly been signed by the Cowboys. He paid absolutely no attention, talked himself and generally acted retarded. Anytime another player would walk by the room the football player would yell “Bro!” The professor would give him an stern look and he’d say “That’s my football bro” and the professor would just stare then go back about his business.
At the end of the semester grades were being handed out and the professor stood in front of the ball player’s desk and said the grades range from 100 , and he looked down at the ball player and said “to 2” as he laid the sheet on his desk. The guy didn’t make it past training camp.
.
.
Lezzie Boredom swore and cried during a class discussion -
What ever happened to:
“I am woman - hear me roar”?
.
.
This is going to have a nasty effect on fair grading if it succeeds. Imagine a whole new tort industry among trial lawyers.. We’ll soon see TV ads about “grade justice.”
This is going to have a nasty effect on fair grading if it succeeds. Imagine a whole new tort industry among trial lawyers.. We’ll soon see TV ads about “grade justice.”
Hi. I don’t believe we’ve met. :)
Given the dumbing down of academics, and grade creep, I wonder how many of the otherwise A grades were inflated? Or, were each and every one really earned?
If she knew that class participation was 25% of the grade why did she not try to please her teacher by behaving and participating in an orderly, polite manner?
If she received all A's otherwise, why would one C+ totally destroy her? If I recall a C+ was a passing grade, even for graduate school. It was not a good thing because grad students were expected to maintain a B average. Strange case. Should have been dismissed.
"Send Lawyers, Guns and Money, Dad; Get me out of this".
If it's true the student had 100% attendance, then a 0 out of 25% seems extreme.
For most college students (even the smart ones), showing up for every class is a huge achievement.
OTOH, a distruptive student doesn't deserve the full 25% for participation.
She did not tell me or our dad about it until after the fact, and she did not sue the bastard or the school for sexual harassment and discrimination, but quietly got into another field and is doing quite well today. If we had known about it, my dad and me would have paid the jerk a very uncordial visit.
So there may be something to this woman's story. It rings true to me, based on our own experience with these people.
Yeah, I’d surely love a million bucks for every grade of c I got as a student.
Professors should be forced to give everyone straight a grades as a matter of course.
Right.
If she didn’t have the persistance and dedicaton to overcome that minor obstacle, then maybe it’s best for everyone that she did not advance further in her originally chosen field.
Maybe you received a low grade, not because of the subject matter of your review (which I fail to see as being conservative or liberal), but because the review was poorly written.
“Given the dumbing down of academics, and grade creep, I wonder how many of the otherwise A grades were inflated? Or, were each and every one really earned?”
Interesting thought. Perhaps a sleaze lawyer can invent a new industry line of suing schools as part of professional malpractice against incompetent practitioners.
But she is a protected minority and SHE IS ENTITLED! /s
So she’s finished for life, and doesn’t expect to make a single penny at any sort of career ever, just because of a grade in a single course?
In a saner world, she would just realize that perhaps she wasn’t cut out for this particular field of endeavor, and try to make a go of it in something else. How many stories are there of people who appeared to be a failure earlier in life, who eventually found their niche and achieved happiness and success later on.
But no, in the society we have today, the path to success is to sue someone and live off the proceeds.
Without details, it could easily be either side in the wrong here. It could easily be both.
But couldn’t she just retake the class at some point?
However, I would like to add that it sounds like a spoiled brat not getting what she wanted rather than a vindictive teacher. JMO.
If there indeed is a warning letter in her file, then the student should not prevail.
Suing for lost wages while still at the student level is hinky, anyway.
It would be like me filing a lawsuit because my boss gave me a bad annual evaluation..
How about little girl, you put on your big girl panties and LEARN something about setbacks in life. Re-take the class and correct what this Prof. didn’t like.
Sheesh, see it every semester. Kids whining that because they didn’t show up, didn’t do the work and didn’t learn the material the Prof. dare grade them accordingly.
Another product of the Everyone’s a winner mindset.
Maybe, however as a straight A+ student of history with a near perfect score on my verbal SAT, plus the fact the paper was just fine and the professor’s “American History” class was 100% revisionism that FDR was a conservative, Lincoln a racist, etc. - means that you’re mistaken and the professor was a liberal jerk who on a daily basis couldn’t tolerate the though of anything not liberal.
I didn’t think such occurrences were met so skeptically here, professor.
Some schools don’t permit you to retake a class for credit, or average the grades, etc. In any event her claim that one C+ ruined her life seems overstated.
Who knows what happened, the lawsuit is outrageous but please, people don’t remember lots of college students and professors being jerks? The amazing thing is running into a conservative professor.
I think that you're right: there are few conservative professors today. I was so lucky to have nothing but conservative professors. But then I went college in the South in the 1960s. Lucky me.
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