Lehigh University student got a C+ and now seeks $1.3 million in lawsuit

[The Straight Story]

A graduate of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. has sued the school for $1.3 million because she is unhappy that she got a C+ in a class in 2009.

Megan Thode, 27, says the grade ruined her dream of becoming a licensed professional counselor, reports The Morning Call, an Allentown-based newspaper. Her civil suit alleges breach of contract and sexual discrimination. It contends that the grade was part of a broader attempt to force her to abandon the graduate degree she was pursuing.

...

Thode was in the last year of a master’s in counseling and human services in Lehigh’s College of Education. She needed a B in the course at issue — a fieldwork class — to qualify for another round of field work, which was required to obtain the degree.

....

Orloski has also alleged that Carr and Nicholas Ladany (who was the director of the degree program) conspired against Thode because she and three other students were critical when they were had to search for supplemental internships midway through a semester.

The suit also charges that the course professor treated Thode unfairly because of Thode’s support for gay and lesbian causes — a claim Lehigh flatly disputes, according to The Morning Call.

...

Hamburg pointed out that Thode is the daughter of Lehigh finance professor Stephen Thode. One of the perks of that relationship was that she was able to enroll in the Lehigh graduate program tuition-free. The school provided her with a job as well. She also got to attend York College of Pennsylvania at no charge as an undergraduate thanks to her Lehigh connections, says The Call.

http://news.yahoo.com/lehigh-university-student-got-c-124956418.html

[patrice]

1. I'm confused: she's suing for value from something that she didn't pay for & was a part of

due to special treatment, which was not accorded equally to others, in the first place?

[leftyohiolib]

2. yep and she didnt agree with the grade so now she's gonna make them pay for what they did

no good deed goes unpunished

[patrice]

4. My MS Ed research showed a strong increase in grade inflation in the USA. That was

over 10 years ago, but the trend that I was looking at at that time was, if I remember well enough, approaching 20 years old.

You can see it now in stories such as this http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2367020 . There's a strong push to take what has been well established in market forces that influence grades and grading and to push that through the agency of corporate personhood into politically defined grades, not that that would be any surprise to anyone following NCLB and charter school issues. Standardized testing is a BUSINESS, after all.

[malaise]

7. Once universities and colleges push a business model

there is grade inflation - let in as many dunces as apply and give them their degree - fugg education. It's frightening.

[patrice]

8. And screw any academic discipline that isn't ALL about making a buck: no basic research +

students SOLD a bill of goods that may or may not, ironically, result in their own ability to survive financially and many of them don't know what they don't know about all of that until it's too late.

We need lifelong educational opportunities that are more specifically appropriate to different kinds of individual needs and motives and processes should be dynamically balanced between institutional and individual control. Technology is going to play a big part, but it is NOT sufficient to certain more human dimensions of learning.

[malaise]

9. Yep the business schools that were encouraged at the expense

of competent departments of economics are the source of the problem - that and the pro neo-liberal donors who would prefer that people be kept in ignorance.

[dsc]

3. It was a benefit provided due to her dad working there

and I would assume all employees were treated the same. I am not saying the woman is right but she had every right to that benefit.

[patrice]

5. Oh, the school does! have a right to do that sort of thing. I was just wondering about

how to assess whatever value she is claiming she invested and which the school "abused".

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. It is a benefit, and probably not only for faculty

The children of a janitor at Lehigh likely have access to same.

In any case, she is not suing for value, but for her projected earnings in her field of choice, a field denied to her intentionally and capriciously (according to her and her lawyers) by the professor and grad director (one presumes it doesn't cost $1.3 million to receive a Master's degree in counseling at Lehigh).

Now, I don't agree with this suit, but you can see how it might have merit. If the course grade was indeed punishment and not related to standards, and that course grade was necessary to proceed in her chosen career path, and if that path is now closed off to her because of the grade, there is at least a point here.

Consider, for example, a mid-20's female graduate student with goals of pursuing a doctorate - the required degree for her long-term goal of securing a tenured faculty position in the humanities. Now, imagine she is actually accepted to a PhD program, and has completed her coursework, and is now in her comprehensive (or qualifying) exams. Imagine one member of her committee has made implicit advances towards her in the past, which she has either rebuffed or refused to acknowledge. He refuses to pass her qualifying exams - which are borderline but not terrible. Does she have a claim of a tort against the professor? That's the analogous case here.

That said, it is extremely difficult (for good reason) to claim that a particular grade is tortious and courts are notoriously reluctant to step in between the faculty-student relationship at any level. The bar for proving intentional wrong is very high, as courts have no interest in being bogged down in the complaints of every C or D student who wants to contest a grade.