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Internet Lawyers -- Not Just for Publishers Anymore
A Dartmouth professor has decided to sue her students (with some faculty thrown in) for discrimination. Supposedly, "discrimination" now entails students disagreeing with you. Who knew?

(If you don't want to wade through all that, there are also summaries at Gawker and IvyGate.)

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Re: serious bzns!

issendai
2008-05-03 03:19 pm UTC (link)

I can definitely see that. I've seen similar things happen at other schools, including situations in which the "Gattaca/tenure track" comment wouldn't have been complete batshit. The cultural and linguistic divide she was working across couldn't have helped either.

What's going to complicate the case--if it ever goes anywhere--is that she's so obviously crazy that it's going to be hard to separate normal human reactions to craziness from the unacceptable behavior. It's likely that most of the students involved, regardless of their behavior, are going to be slightly hardened because of this mess, more defensive of their right to treat other people like they treated (or were accused of treating) this teacher. And that's a pity.

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Re: serious bzns!

entrenous88
2008-05-03 03:51 pm UTC (link)

I completely agree. There may be legitimate charges, but she's gotten into an unfortunate position already with these various poorly planned and executed, and unfortunately now very public, moves.

Yes, yes, I agree with this. Adding to their cynicism from the circumstances you mentioned, this group is made up of kids who didn't place at a certain level in their verbal SATs, and so were required to take this class. They may have other resentment/defensive issues about being at Dartmouth anyway, and I wonder to what degree her teaching and curriculum materials became the target of their more general defensiveness.

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