AP: B-minus? See you in court (Man suing University of Nevada over grades)

[truthpusher]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/21D263EA6018A7C586256F9E00558C8E?OpenDocument&Headline=B-minus!+See+you+in+court

B-minus? See you in court
Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Bob Whitney isn't willing to accept a B-minus. He's suing the University of Nevada, Las Vegas after losing an appeal over the grade.

Bob Whitney, 52, alleges in the lawsuit that a history professor discriminated against him because of his conservative values. He seeks at least $10,000 for emotional duress, tuition, books and living expenses

<snip>

Whitney said the grade he got in Eugene Moehring's class in spring 2004 damaged his grade-point average and made him ineligible for student loans. He claimed Moehring's fast-paced lectures prevented him from taking complete notes, and Moehring criticized his conservatism in written assignments.

Whitney accused Andrew Bell, then a graduate coordinator, of refusing to change the grade and humiliating him by yelling at him in front of his wife.

complete story>>>>

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/21D263EA6018A7C586256F9E00558C8E?OpenDocument&Headline=B-minus!+See+you+in+court

[CottonBear]

1. 10 to 1 he's a freeper. eom

[struggle4progress]

83. ... Whitney alleges that Moehring repeatedly began class by announcing ...

"Let's get this done so we can all go home or go out and have a beer" ...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-ed/2005/feb/02/518224752.html

:toast:

[GiovanniC]

2. Jesus, You'd Think If a Freeper Could Get a "B-" in COLLEGE

He would just accept a position as their one-eyed king and shut the fuck up.

[susanna]

70. LOL... n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. no this actually fits a pattern nation wide

go to college to get a degree, they are there to serve you, NOT to educate you

[Hissyspit]

21. That idea is becoming more wide-spread...

It is in a word: ignorant.

"Fast-paced lectures prevented him from taking notes" Good god. What a joke.

[LiberalFighter]

44. Why didn't he tape it? Or hire someone to do shorthand for him?

[DemBones DemBones]

49. More succinctly, professors exist to give YOU an A -- but they must

give others lower grades to combat grade inflation. The average student believes he or she is entitled to an A, thus proving his/her misunderstanding of "average." ;-)

[susanna]

71. You'd think that students would

understand "the Bell curve." Especially those of the conservative persuasion...

[ynksnewyork2]

4. One word... FRIVOLOUS!!

[livinginphotographs]

5. Take OWNERSHIP (trademark of the Bush admin) of your grade, loser!

Poor, poor conservatives.

[Bill McBlueState]

6. What's wrong with a B-???

B-minus means "slightly less than good" and it's above a C, which is average.

And where does anyone get off complaining about fast-paced lectures? College is supposed to be hard, right?

These conservatives and their sense of entitlement. Sheesh.

[WildClarySage]

8. Has this guy never heard of a

tape recorder? *sheesh*

[Anakin Skywalker]

42. Why Do You People Do This?

Don't be cruel! A few posts on here have suggested he use some modern thingamajig devices but damn it, this guy obviously just thawed from an ice cube. Have some understanding of where conservatives come from. :) Thank you.

*This message has been brought to you by Friends of Neanderthals*

[oldcoot]

27. post removed

Redundant information.

[phusion]

7. A B- making him inelgible for loans?

That is such BS...

One B- cannot screw up your GPA enough to make you inelgible for loans. You only need a 2.0 to get federal loans.

What a "conservative" dolt.

I hope his lawsuit gets laughed at and tossed out by the judge.

[Occulus]

10. Depends....

He had to have been seriously failing his other courses to lose his funding. This class had to have been the make-it-or-break-it "easy-A", and he screwed it up and is looking for someone else to blame.

That's the only way any one class could be important enough to do well in or lose funding, and I'm doubting even that is truly the case...

[LiberalFighter]

45. So someone in court needs to bring that out as well as a reporter.

[DemBones DemBones]

50. Bingo! And the student's story to the prof is always

"It's YOUR class that's making me lose my scholarship/grant/loan/ making my parents kick me out of the house/ giving me bad breath."

[DrWeird]

13. Meaning he's getting D's and F's in his other classes.

nt

[central scrutinizer]

25. and for more than one term, too

At my university, if you fail to make adequate academic progress (12 quarter hours per term) you can lose your access to federal student aid. The first time it happens, you go on financial aid probation and have two terms to get back up to an average of 12/term. If his school works the same way, he must have failed a lot of classes over more than one term.

[HereSince1628]

84. Yes, but the last straw always gets special treatment,..

I very much disliked that part of teaching.

I had a student tell me that a therapist told him he was better at oral exams than written exams...

so I said ok...
Name the anatomical structures of the respiratory system that would be encounterd by a typical oxygen molecule on its path from outside the body until entering the blood stream.

His answer began..."I'd enter the mouth and go to the stomach." At which point I suggested that it may be too much pressure to do the exam without warning...he said "No, no, I know this stuff!"

so I said ok...Name the anatomical structures of the respiratory system that would be encounterd by a typical oxygen molecule on a path from outside the body until entering the blood stream.

His answer began..."enter at the mouth and go to the stomach..."

It got worse. Afterwards I said he had failed the oral exam.
He went to the Dean and complained...my test was unfair and the grade _I gave him_ was going to cause him to lose his eligibility for assistance...

The Dean made me give him yet another oral exam which turned out the same way.

[oldcoot]

26. post removed

post removed

[Sandpiper]

43. That's what I was thinking

A B- is in the range of 2.5 - 2.7.

I can see it making him ineligible for scholarships, but for loans? Not possible.

[proud2BlibKansan]

56. My thoughts exactly

How many other classes did he flunk in order to bring down his GPA?

[sandnsea]

69. My son is on academic probation

For exactly that. So I know first hand, it takes worse than a B to lose your loans. You have to be getting D's and F's for a very long time to lose your loans.

But it does bring up the other problem with education as an economic solution. Some people are stupid. What do we do about people who are truly too stupid to lift themselves out of poverty?

[Malikshah]

78. I've had students tell me, their grade in my class helped kick them

out of school....

A C-, D, F etc. I let them know I'm sorry for their situation, but that my course grade alone did not do it.

This guy should be kicked out of court and made to pay all court costs.

Speaking too fast? Get a tape recorder or learn how to take notes.

Classic whineybutt antics ...

[libnnc]

9. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!

I am so effing SICK of these faux victims bullying their way through academia, threatening professors and university administration! This shit is happening all over.

College Repugs at my university (UNC-Greensboro) get their rocks off trashing the History Dept in the college news-rag. These asshats are not victims! They are bullies! If they want "conservative" education they should take the first bus to Bob Jones University and stop polluting liberal-arts institutions.

end rant.

[Autobot77]

77. Exactly

Its funny how Conservatives always complain about people being victims these days, yet they play the victim card all the time.Fucking Hypocrits.

[Demit]

11. This joker is 52? Good grief, what a weenie.

[d.l.Green]

76. He was probably downsized from his job and because that trickle down

job theory didn't pan out he decided to try to expand his conservative mind- talk about irony. A conservative going into a free-thinking educational system at that age- sounds like guaranteed Failure!

[ISUGRADIA]

12. Hypocrite- Conservatives are supposed to be against

frivolous lawsuits.

[KissMeKate]

14. victim conservativism

remember when they used to talk about "personal responsibility"?

[KamaAina]

15. Who does this moran think he is, "F" Lee Bailey?!

Let me see if I've got this straight: the prof's "fast-paced lectures" are somehow evidence of being "discriminated against because of his conservative values"?!

A) Last I checked, "conservative values" were not a protected category under anti-discrimination law, and B) (or B-minus, actually) freepers oppose discrimination law, anyway, except when they can use it to serve their own ends.

[yardwork]

16. Similar to suing the universities for making students read books

The University of North Carolina has been besieged by a well-organized right wing campaign to prevent the school from asking incoming freshman to read such horrendously left-wing books as "Nickle and Dimed."

[DS1]

17. What kind of conservative needs student freakin loans?

Sucking on the gubmint teat, he is, the fucking asshole.

[Robert Oak]

19. not a free market value to be sure, he don't need no loans

the market can determine whether he should attend college or not.

[Anakin Skywalker]

41. Yes. This Guy is an Ultimate Hypocrite!

<chanting> @$$hole! @$$hole! Can you say @$$hole? :)

[Robert Oak]

18. but he's for tort reform

those frivolous lawsuits...those people just gotta be stopped!

What a hypocrite.

[Blue_Tires]

20. ugh...i wish this was from the onion....

[GoddessOfGuinness]

22. The lectures were too fast?

Why didn't this guy take a recorder...or at least read the damned textbook?!?

[Anakin Skywalker]

38. Those Things Cannot

help his Neanderthal brain! :) Clearly, evolution has left this particular Freeper behind.

[Lisa]

23. A couple of years ago a student made a racist comment about me ...

... on a final exam. Pretty soon after, the student realized that this might have been poor timing, and lodged a pre-emptive complaint with my department chair. (I hadn't even seen the exam paper yet.)

Luckily my chair was totally supportive. (The student had already made himself notorious for "pushing the system" elsewhere on campus.) Anyway, I ended up having a colleague grade that particular question, not just for that student but for the whole class.

He didn't do well on that question (or on the exam in general) because I'd been careful to peg the marking key to what had been covered in the textbook. He'd assumed that his own opinions would count for marks (some liberal-leaning students also did this) and as a result, he didn't actually answer the question.

So the department was satisfied that everything had turned out -- but I still have nightmares about these kinds of scenarios!


p.s. students have also been known to file lawsuits if they've been expelled or had their grades docked for academic misconduct. The administration at my school (and at others, I've heard) has asked instructors to make sure they have definite written proof of cheating before taking action, just in case. A prof I know at a different university once had to show not just one, but two lawyers, multiple highlighted passages from journals and books to demonstrate that a particular student had plagiarized.

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

51. Making a racist remark...

...(or any derogatory remark) in an exam paper is very stupid. Making this remark about someone who might be marking said paper demonstrates levels of stupidity that defy my vocabulary. Having the nerve to lodge a "pre-emptive complaint" to deflect/cover-up from such a mistake makes my head go
:nuke:

He would go far in the current U.S. Administration.

Educators like you do admirable work. It's sad that you have to spend so much time protecting yourself from crap like this.

[Lisa]

55. my teaching assistant and I laughed about it later ...

(Sort of -- since the thought of the guy being out there, making trouble, isn't reassuring.) The student had also made a nasty comment about him -- he's of aboriginal and French-Canadian ancestry, so at least one could argue that he'd slammed a whole bunch of ethnic groups and was being consistent!

Thanks for the kind words ...

I've given good grades to students who have different political views from me -- and poor grades to students who held (or claimed to hold) views similar to mine, if they turned in sloppy work -- so the chair said that he trusted my judgement and professionalism in any case. But I was glad we'd had the option of recusing ourselves from the marking process.

Several years ago, an older student petitioned me for the chance to re-do his exam. Our university doesn't allow this unless there's a medical or counselling issue, and counselling had already turned down his application. In this situation, the student claimed that he needed to get into law school to support his children, since he'd been laid off after a change in government. We are both active in the same political party, and he'd been hoping to use that to his advantage. I refused, and he became very upset. Anyway, I told the people at my precinct about this, and explained that I would have no choice but to quit the party if there was any hint of pressure being applied on me, to protect their reputation and the university's. I'm glad to say that every single person there was more concerned about the ethics of the situation, than about patronage. (It later turned out that the student had been lying about the GPA required for law school.)

[Behind the Aegis]

24. Lawsuits!

If it isn't going your way, it's the other person's fault! SUE! If the person doesn't agree with your conservative views, they are "out to get you!" :eyes:

These people are deluded! Of course, we have a government that blames EVERYONE else but their own incompetence. This is a big part of the problem!

I hope he sues, loses his shirt, and has to rely on compassionate conservatism! I am usually not so callous, but some people cannot learn except by experience, so let him experience the compassionate conservatism the rest of us are brutalized by!

[rocktivity]

28. Why didn't he ask for the opportunity to raise his grade?

I once took a class that gave three exams during the semester, and you didn't have to take the final if you passed. I ended up with a C, but I wanted a B, because it didn't go with the A's and B's I was getting in my other classes.

So I go to take the final exam, I'm writing away, and I feel a tap on my shoulder. It's my shocked-looking professor--"Didn't I pass you?" I said, "Yeah, but I want a B." He came back about 45 minutes later, looked over what I'd written, and said, "Okay, you've got you B." I collected my things and left!

:headbang:
rocknation

[LiberalFighter]

46. You had to have had a Liberal professor

Since only liberal professors would change a grade

A conservative professor would REFUSE to make ANY changes

[American Renaissance]

29. grade appeals are a waste of time,

Even if this student happens to be in the right, grade appeals are usually a waste of time.

I received a D on a final exam in a course, my final grade was a C. I got an A on the midterm. Over the course of the semester I got in a dispute with the instructor over something not even related to the course so she pissed all over my final exam.

Two professors were backing me up, both wrote letters on my behalf stating that what I had written in the final exam was 100% appropriate and that the lowest mark I got in any related course was an A-

I wasted about a week working on the appeal, just to have my appeal rejected without explaination or apparently even being read.

The professors backing me up suggested I launch an academic misconduct complaint against the instructor, but it seemed clear to me that if the administration wasn't even going to look at a grade appeal co-signed by two professors, they probably were not going to look at a misconduct complaint.

The stupid bitch was tenured,

[prairierose]

30. A B- would NOT keep someone from getting a student loan...

anywhere in this country. This is just more of the attitude that when a student pays their tuition they have paid for a grade. They shouldn't have to EARN a grade. I have started putting this into my syllabus for every class every semester. Teachers do not GIVE grades, students EARN grades by doing the required work to the standards the teacher(professor) lays out. I hate the constant lowering of standards and students who threaten teachers for whatever reason in any manner. Because make no mistake this type of thing is a threat to that tteacher's employment and future. This is not what education is about. I spend so much time talking about the fact that education is not a passive activity. Students must actually put in the necessary work to assimilate the knowledge.

If you want to buy your grades, go to some diploma mill & buy a degree.

[HuckleB]

34. Exactly!

[LiberalFighter]

47. Go to Harvard Business... it worked for dipshit gw*

[dsc]

64. actually many grad schools do require

solid B averages for financial aid. A friend of mine just lost his scholarship to grad school over this kind of thing (his was a C plus though)

[prairierose]

67. Yes, I know that grad school requires a B average....

believe me, I was so scared my first year in grad school that I was praying for B's instead of A's but nowhere does the article say that he was in grad school.

If you are inferring from, " Whitney accused Andrew Bell, then a graduate coordinator, of refusing to change the grade ..." that because the professor was a graduate coordinator that makes the student a grad student; that is faulty reasoning. You do not have enough information to make that inference. The grad coordinator in any dept would probably be teaching a mixture of grad and undergrad courses.

And one B- in a mix of A's and B's would not knock him out of financial aid territory.

[publius_jr]

31. Pure B.S.

And what's this shit about suing for tuition, books, room, & board? U of Nevada needs to countersue this bitch, irregardless of cost, to teach this mo-fo a lesson he won't forget. No final exam for this lesson, nor grade to fret over; just the sweet loss of, hmmm, how's 10-grand sound? I'm sure the school suffered some 'emotional distress' too.

[HuckleB]

32. Another frivolous "conservative" lawsuit.

This guy needs to get on with his life.

[Anakin Skywalker]

36. Good Catch!

Yeah. Is his stupid lawsuit not frivolous and hypocritical? I thought his Supreme Leader Georgie Bush not only frowns upon, but actively seeking to OUTLAW lawsuits? I wonder how these Freeptards can look themselves in the mirror every morning.

[Anakin Skywalker]

33. Dimwit Should've Went to

BOOB JONES UNIVERSITY! Where ONLY backwards-thinking conservatives are welcome!

[HuckleB]

35. Why didn't he just go to the University of Phoenix?

Isn't that where 52-year-old conservatives buy their "good grades"?

[Anakin Skywalker]

37. LOL! With Degrees

in their beloved CONservative activities like marketing (a euphemism for "conning the dumb masses with cheap, outsourced products"). To hell with them librul arts. :)

[amazona]

39. wow--25 yrs ago B-minus was an above average grade

It kept him from getting student loans? Sheesh, the world has gone crazy. But if the grades have inflated for everyone else and it is costing him money, yes, I can understand why he would sue. It sure sounds stupid to those of us who attended college in the 70s though. It is a different world.

I don't think he'll win based on saying the professor 1) talked too fast for him, or 2) the professor tried to challenge his stodgy thinking processes. This is what professors are paid to do.

But yeah if he got screwed over on a loan because of a B-minus the system is broken somewhere.

Just don't see where it's quite fair to blame the professor. I think he quite properly lost the appeal of the grades on those grounds.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[DrWeird]

40. Do those that went to college in the 70s realize...

that it's the grade point average that determines loans, not single grades?

i.e., he's getting lower than a C average, and he's already on probation.

[amazona]

53. had no idea what the loan criterion was

Back in our day people actually had grants! Like I said, different world.

But if he was already on probation, it makes a bit more sense that he was denied the loan.

I just don't understand why he is suing THIS professor. Seems like he is blaming the wrong person for his low GPA. Maybe he should take a look in the mirror! Or at the very least sue the professor who gave him the D or the F...

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[kodi]

48. "fast-paced lectures prevented him from taking complete notes"?

read: "too dumb to keep up with the rest of the class."

what the hell was he expecting, transcripts of the lectures?

I used to be a college prof, and the grade begging i had to listen to was disgraceful. if the kids had put as much time into their studies as they did their excuses, they all would have aced the classes.

[Lisa]

52. these days, students e-mail profs wanting advance copies of the notes

Some people in my department have begun putting their overheads/Powerpoint slides on the Web. I can see why, but it does mean that there's more of a temptation to cut class and "read the notes later". The guy across the hall from me, who does this, was slammed in his course evaluations because students claimed that he was asking exam questions that "weren't covered in class". (Actually he mentioned several times in his lectures that the Web material didn't include case studies etc. so you'd have to come to class to get the missing 25-30% of the material -- but people either forgot or weren't there to hear the announcements.)

Plus, students expect all instructors to do this -- and some of us just don't have the time or technical savvy. (I'd do it if they gave me a Distance Education position -- doing daily updates and maintenance when I'm only getting paid for part-time work would max out my available hours.)

A couple of years ago we had a server crash the day before a major exam, and people who left it until then to read the online material had serious problems -- they almost had to schedule a new exam.

[kodi]

54. I gave out my lecture notes 4-5 weeks in advance for them to see

That way there was no way they did not have an opportunity familiarize themselves with what I was writng on the blackboard or overhead.

I told them that the lecture notes were the bones of the lecture and the actual verbal lesson was the connecting tissue.

The lecture notes were "professing."

The verbal lecture was "teaching."

There is a big difference.

[Merope215]

57. That's what most of my professors do

and it works really well. Usually, I print out the lectures and bring them to classes so I can make notes on them while I'm able to pay more attention to the non-essential stuff the professor is talking about.

This guy is a moron. Grade begging is obnoxious even to other students, and at his age, that's just pathetic.

[LisaM]

59. Interesting, because I've heard the PowerPoint can actually limit learning

You don't really absorb the material. I kind of like PowerPoint at presntations because it shows the presenter is organized and it can keep the presentation from drifting away from the topic, but I always take heavy notes and put them on the area for notes!

[Lisa]

81. I still use overhead transparancies ...

Until recently, our school didn't have Powerpoint capability in all the classrooms, plus there were the inevitable technical hitches -- at least with overhead copies, I would still have access to my written material (and could fall back on the document camera if all else failed).

Students have told me that they prefer the overheads, because with 2 separate machines running I can leave them up longer -- some instructors with Powerpoint get carried away and flip though the slides too quickly. With transparencies, it's also a bit easier for me to go back to an earlier pic onscreen, or skip material if I'm running late.

I limit myself to no more than 12 overheads (in 24-pt font) per hour, which usually works out to fewer than 50 words per page. Plus I highlight the important parts in color and tell the students to focus on that -- so they don't end up copying down too much text. Typically it works out to 2 dozen points per lecture (so roughly one every 2-3 minutes). I pause frequently to make sure people can keep up.

I also make copies of the overheads available in the library afterwards in case they missed class (though they have to ask people who were present to find out what points were the key ones).

[smoogatz]

58. When wingnuts go to college

Weird shit is bound to happen. It's a little like the Nazi youth showing up at Hebrew school and complaining that the courses aren't taught in German.

[depakid]

60. Like most "conservatives"

he probably had wrote false statements in his paper and failed to cite credible sources.

And if the prof speaks fast, bring a tape recorder, moran...

[bushcrab]

61. He should sue his parents too, for raising such a lame ass

[MountainLaurel]

63. Well, he's 51

So there's a strong likelihood that his 'rents are pushing up daisies at the moment.

[progressivebydesign]

62. A "B-" does NOT have anything to do with student loans...

Unless he's getting "F" in everything else. Student loans do not have a think to do with grades.. unless you're kicked out of school. Unstable man. I call BULLSHIT!!

[VegasWolf]

65. The lectures were too fast? Or, his brain was too slow. Not

everyone is academically advantaged.

[VegasWolf]

66. Umm, looking at his whining about "Conservative Values", I am

surprised his prof gave him even a B_, I would have
been hard pressed to give him a C.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

68. Oh, man, I ran into this type of student all the time

When I was helping evaluate incoming students for the freshman honors program, we used to look at their admissions essays. They were supposed to write an essay on "an issue of current interest," and invariably, there would be an example of ditto-spew among the essays.

We could have overlooked the political slant of the essay if it had been coherent, but it never was.

We actually had students complain to the academic dean that they had been rejected from the honors program for their political opinions.

As far as the B- is concerned, it was not uncommon for students to petition the academic affairs committee (which I served on for two years) to have grades changed on the grounds that one professor's low grade had kept them out of grad school or made them ineligible for their scholarship or ineligible for sports. It was completely bogus, because anyone who has ever averaged grades knows that it takes more than one bad grade to ruin a student's GPA.

It's always the professor's fault, too. So the professor lectured too fast? Other students seem not to have had problems keeping up. Perhaps the plaintiff's brain couldn't keep up with the lectures.

Hearing stories like this reminds me why I was happy to leave academia.

[truthpusher]

72. I feel for you. n/t

[Endangered Specie]

73. Ok... so let me get this straight:

Asbestos lawsuits - BAD
College Grade lawuits - GOOD

Have these conservatives ever stopped to consider WHY the vast majority of college (esp History/Humanitites) professors are LIBEERAL?...

Maybe, they, oh, KNOW SOMETHING YOU DON'T! ;)

[enlightenment]

74. Hi -- I usually just read, but since I'm in this guy's department,

I thought I'd post on this one. (it's kind of scary, since low posters are an easy target) I am not defending this fella's actions, just trying to clarify the situation a bit. Hope that's okay.

The guy is a grad student, in the MA program. I am, also (in the PhD). Our department does stipulate a B or better -- a B- is equivalent to an F. The article suggests he couldn't get loans; my understanding (second-hand, I don't 'know' the person) is that the grade made him ineligible for a graduate assistantship -- pays a stipend ($10000 a year for the MA) and 88% of tuition and fees. For that, you work 20 hours a week for the department (and cannot work elsewhere, though most have to sneak it in), maintain a minimum 3.5 GPA, and keep your nose clean. Since the department reviews assistantship applications (they make the decision, not the grad college), they COULD use the grade to disallow his application.

The professor in question does talk at the speed of light, BTW. Students joke (sometimes in a not-so-funny way) about the cramps they get in their hands, trying to keep up. He does expect you to be able to incorporate his lectures, so the need to keep up is important. I'm not sure how he feels about tape recorders, but he is a bit of a neo-Luddite, so he may not like having them in the classroom. (I'm a Europeanist, so my classes are different; but we're a relatively small department). The bigger problem for me is the suggestion (in the local paper) that he was not using any texts to supplement the class (a US historiography). Graduate history classes do not have "textbooks" -- usually a dozen or so historical monographs, and as many articles. The article was unclear as to what "no texts" meant. You have to something to supplement lecture . . .

The graduate coordinator (who is now assistant dean of liberal arts) is known for a quick temper and a less than understanding attitude.
Can't say more than that.

As to the guy? Never really talked to him, so I don't know his politics -- if he's a raging conservative, I suspect our conversation would be VERY short. Don't care for it and don't have to listen to it, so I don't.
As for his age -- well, since I am an older student (47), I could wish for a little more understanding. We're older -- not dead.
Nevada may be a red state, but Las Vegas is blue; I suspect his lawsuit won't go far.
Sorry for being long-winded,
another harried grad student

[smoogatz]

75. Hey there

It appears that the substance of the guy's lawsuit is that the Prof gave him a B- because of his conservative politics. Do you have any feeling about the likely truth (or not) of that assertion?

[VegasWolf]

79. Hi!! and welcome to DU! A lot of us here have done the grad dance.

Do you believe his claims that he was discriminated against
because of "conservative values." What was he preaching??

[enlightenment]

80. Thanks for the welcome!

Thanks to both you and Smoogatz (who has asked me the same question) for the welcome. I've been a 'lurker' -- do people still use that phrase? -- for, gee, almost 2 years I think. I feel like a DUer, but I hesitate to do much posting. Things move pretty quickly around here!

To try and answer your question; briefly, no, I don't believe that his politics earned him the B-. His attitude may have. Gene Moehring is NOT inclined to be patient with attitude, but I don't think he's stupid enough (to be blunt) to paint himself into this kind of corner -- particularly at a time when the overly righteous right is gunning for "pointy-headed" academics all over the place; historians in particular, it seems. It is possible that the guy didn't do what he was supposed to do -- if he was supposed to write a comparative critical review and instead produced a right-wing diatribe, then a failing grade would be for the failure to do the assignment as assigned. Easy enough to prove, I suspect.

On the other hand, I think we're all reaching critical mass these days. I teach undergrad (100/200 level) classes, and get so frustrated with the red-white-blue blinkered twits who can't tell me WHERE Iraq is, (much less that it was the cradle of civilization or any of its history) that I'd like to string them up by their toes. I don't know how Moehring feels, but these days its always in the realm of possibility.

As to what he was preaching -- I really don't know. The lid is clamped tight on this one at the moment. Probably be a week or so before the leaks start and details are known (we historians can tell you the background of "loose lips sink ships" but don't usually take the hint!) I THINK I've talked a time or two to Bob Whitney, and if it's the same guy I have to say I'm surprised; he seemed really mellow. But, I'm not sure.

So, I guess that's all I know
Regards to all

[Lisa]

82. welcome to DU!

It sounds like our departments have similar policies, regarding grad stipends and teaching/research assistantships. I just finished a PhD, and asking people who can recall back to the early 1990s, I think we had 2-3 people in the programme (out of more than 100 Masters and PhD students) who ended up losing funding due to poor grades in their grad courses. We did have a lot of people who ended up going past the 2-3 years allocated to us for guaranteed teaching assistantships (including me), but there was so much need for instructors that even people who'd already graduated were being pulled in to teach, so between that and the co-op program, things were generally okay. I was grad rep 2 years running and had to deal with funding issues, and there was usually a way around requirements (extensions, course transfers, etc.) Some of the courses had heavy reading requirements, but even then most of us managed to muddle through with B or B+.

Good luck with your degree program!

[Placebo]

85. My English professor gave me a B- last week...

I can't remember the last time I didn't get an A on a paper. It really pissed me off. If I could sue him or destroy him somehow with my evil super genius powers I would. I hate the man with a passion now, fat unfair bastard.