Based on 172 community votes, the most popular answer to “Should I Report a Professor Who’s Unfairly Failing a Student?” is “Report the professor to university officials” — chosen by 26% of voters.
Category: education • Theme: Moral Courage vs Personal Risk
I just finished the semester as a teaching assistant for one of the toughest classes in our department. There’s a student, let’s call him “Sam,” who worked incredibly hard—he was always at office hours, turned in every assignment early, and took feedback seriously. But the professor, who can be extremely harsh, seemed to have it out for him after a disagreement early in the semester. I overheard the professor say ‘some students need to be taught a lesson,’ after Sam questioned a confusing grade. Last week, I saw the final grades before they were released—Sam had just missed a passing mark, by literally one point. The thing is, I remember grading Sam’s last assignment higher than what was entered. When I checked, it had been manually lowered in the system by the professor, for a trivial formatting issue not mentioned in the rubric. I feel sick about it, but I’m just a grad student, and the professor is on my committee. Confronting or reporting could ruin my own prospects. Meanwhile, Sam might have to repeat the course, delay graduation, or risk his scholarship. My gut says this isn’t right, but I’m terrified of retaliation and being labeled as 'difficult.' I can’t stop thinking about it, and I don’t know if stepping in is worth risking everything I’ve worked for. What would YOU do?
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