Professors who give anything less than an A risk receiving, as Vittert puts it, "incessant emails and whining about why Joey's grade should have been higher."
Joey's parents will also often demand detailed explanations for a B grade "other than simply Joey's failure to put on an A-level performance."
Next come the accusations. "'You're racist.' 'You're homophobic.' Once a parent accused me of antisemitism, only to back down and accept the lower grade after I pointed out that I'm Jewish," writes Vittert, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
"Worst of all, the administrators at these universities are so afraid of their own student body that they will throw the professors to the wolves — that is, straight to the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) dean — if there is so much as a whiff of an accusation."
Studies show that average grade point averages have increased in recent years. At Yale and Harvard, about 80 percent of grades are A's.
Vittert discusses the implications of this grade hyperinflation, including that employers can no longer trust that a student's good grades are a sign of exceptional achievement.
The phenomenon, Vittert concludes, is a symptom of a larger societal problem.
"We started giving out trophies for participation in school sports, and now we are giving out A's at top colleges — heck, for even less than participation. ("My mental health and social anxiety was too bad to ever attend class.") The fight to give fair grades is just too much of a pain in the neck, and way too risky, for a mere lone professor to face."
Read the op-ed at TheHill.com.
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