What if a student sues a professor because of a bad grade?

Kent Kauffman, associate professor of business law and ethics at Purdue University Fort Wayne, looks into this.

Kent Kauffman is associate professor of Business Law and Ethics, and is the MBA Programs Faculty Liaison in the Doermer School of Business at Purdue University Fort Wayne, where he teaches in the undergraduate and MBA Programs. He is the author of four books, including the recently released Navigating Choppy Waters: Key Legal Issues Faculty Need to Know, published by Rowman & Littlefield.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/navigating-choppy-waters-9781538197295/

Navigating Choppy Waters is the first book of its kind because it provides answers to the vital–and sometimes uncomfortable–questions that all faculty, from part-time to tenured, should contemplate, so they can benefit from viewing their teaching and scholarship from a legal perspective.

He has a B.A. from Temple University and a J.D. from The Penn State University-Dickinson School of Law, and he holds an Indiana law license. Kent is a Purdue member of Indiana University’s selective, scholarly teaching community, the Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching (FACET). He has won research and multiple teaching awards, and has served in leadership capacities on his campus related to teaching enhancement. Kent has spoken at seminars and conferences on the vital legal issues that affect faculty in their teaching and scholarship.

The Legal Standard that Safeguards Faculty When Students Sue Because of a Bad Grade

Have you ever wondered if a student might sue you over a bad grade they earned in your class? It happens – and more so than you might want to know. In one case, a graduate student sued her instructor, who herself was a PhD student, for $1 million over the participation points that affected the student’s final grade. There is good news, which is that the legal standard governing these suits provides broad protection for faculty. Commonly called the Arbitrary and Capricious Standard, this legal North Star guides judicial analysis in these types of student-professor lawsuits.

The arbitrary and capricious standard safeguards faculty whose actions can be thought of as rational or tied to a professional judgment. Accordingly, courts will not substitute their own views on the correctness of a professor’s grading decision. As one federal court forthrightly put it concerning judicial intervention in grading disputes: “It would be difficult to prove by reason, logic or common sense that the federal judiciary is either competent, or more competent, to make such an assessment.” The U.S Supreme Court confirmed this view by stating in a similar case: “When judges are asked to review the substance of a genuinely academic decision….[t]hey may not override it unless it is such a substantial departure from accepted academic norms as to demonstrate that the person or committee responsible did not actually exercise professional judgment” So, absent any evidence that a professor acted irrationally or with hostility or bias toward a student when grading their work, a professor should pass the arbitrary and capricious test.

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