Grades = Problems

Yesterday, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Kyle Dowd, an '06 graduate of Duke University and former member of their lacrosse team, is suing the school and a professor for a grade that he received in a political science course last spring. As you all may recall, last spring was when three members of the Duke lacrosse team were charged with the rape and kidnapping of a woman who had been hired to strip at a team party and tension was high, to say the least, on campus. Dowd claims that Dr. Kim Curtis failed him in the course due to her prejudice against him as a lacrosse player and association with the case, even though he was not personally charged with any crimes. Dowd originally received an F in the class, but the university changed it to a D after he filed a formal complaint and they determined that the F had been the product of a "calculation error." Curtis maintains that Dowd's grade was based on a poor final paper and excessive absenses. Dowd is suing for a passing grade on his transcript and $60,000 in damages.

Obviously, there's more to this story: the kid wasn't going to graduate on time with the F in the class (though he did, ultimately); the professor's name is on an ad that sympathizes with the woman who accused the guys of rape; Dowd's other papers for the class were C quality, not F; the only other failing grade in the course also went to another lacrosse palyer, etc. In any case, it seems possible that the F was, in some part, a result of bias on the professor's part. 'Cause, well, why not? And, if that is the case, it is certainly a problem.

But the bigger problem is that grades are pretty much always products of biases--in the sense that they are rather subjective and fairly arbitrary. (I think this is true even in "hard science" courses that base the grades on test scores alone.) And what is the legal precedent for determining whether a paper deserved an F or not? And is it really OK to sue for damages that include a tuition refund for the cost of the semi-failed course?

I feel pretty torn about the whole thing. First, I don't believe in grades so I have a hard time thinking about the "meaning" of the F (and the D). Since I have given grades to students, though, I do think that failing someone in a course is pretty severe. In my mind, a student really has to put in no effort and/or turn in absolutely incoherent or inappropriate work to flat-out fail a class. But, since there is no single standard for grades, it's hard to say whether someone else's definition of an F-quality performance is valid or not. And, if the circumstances were different--say a female student were suing a male teacher for sex-based discrimination with similarly ambivalent evidence--I would probably feel a little more certain about the appropriateness of the lawsuit in general. I mean, I support challenging grades that seem unfair. But I also think that grades are kind of meaningless; so is a lawsuit really the answer to these issues?

What do you think?

(You can download a copy of the lawsuit from this article from Fox News. [Try not to freak out or throw up from the outrageousness of the article itself. And the fact that the article is part of the "ifeminists" series is a whole other issue!])