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.