This is great. Going through some files on my computer, I found this letter, submitted to the English department where I was in the PhD program. It made me laugh, so I thought I'd share (names ****ed to protect both the guilty and the innocent).

<div class="quote">

25 April 1997

Professor ***** ******
Department of English
******* **** ***********
*********, ** *****

Dear Professor *********:

W*** H**** was my student in English 313, Winter 1997.  He earned a D in the class, and he seems to feel that he was treated unfairly.  Prior to submitting a letter of appeal to the English department, he phoned me at home on Saturday, 22 March to inform me of his dissatisfaction with his grade.  On the phone, he was belligerent and rude; he used inappropriate language and demanded that I meet him to go over his grades and show him how he’d gotten a D.  I told W*** that I would not meet him and that he should file a grade appeal with the department if he felt he’d been evaluated unfairly.  He phoned again on Monday, 24 March to let me know that he’d filed his grade appeal and also a claim of discrimination against me.  He seemed to want me to know that he would seek vindication for the “troubleâ€ I had “causedâ€ him in any way he could.  He also implied that he would drop these claims if I would change his grade to a C.  I told him that I would not change his grade and that he should continue with the appeal process.  W*** also indicated that he had discussed his situation with his classmates, many of whom were similarly bewildered by and disgruntled about their grades; I took this as a further attempt at coercion.

W*** never scored above a C on any individual assignment.  His group did fine work, but he was rarely there to participate; I docked his group grade because of this.  W*** obviously lobbied the group to evaluate him favorably on the group evaluations I distributed at the end of the quarter.  The evaluations required that each group member be rated on his/her overall contribution to the group and his/her ability and willingness to complete assigned tasks.  Every member of W***’s group rated him lower and assigned him a lower letter grade than any other group member.  However, two members of the group mentioned, in the section reserved for additional comments, that even though W*** had missed class so many times, he should get a good grade:

<blockquote>W*** did everything for us that he was asked.  Because of his absences in class, he missed out on a lot of preparation.  However, he did keep in touch out of class and always did what was asked of him.</blockquote>

<blockquote>I know that our group made a big fuss about W*** at first but after our talk with him and your talk with him he really did improve and participated.  He does deserve a good grade.
</blockquote>
I found this blatant appeal to “go easyâ€ on W*** most distasteful, and I was surprised to find that students would be so foolhardy as to ask that another student get credit for work that he hadn’t done.  I did not let this appeal influence my decision to dock W***’s group grade.

It is my policy, stated on the course syllabus, to lower a student’s final grade by at least one letter grade if s/he misses more than three classes.  W*** insists that he missed only three classes, but he has not taken into account the fact that he was regularly 20 to 30 minutes late for class and that I count as absent anyone who is not there when I take roll.  W*** also claims that I never took roll in class; in spite of this, I have recorded absences for him on 1/23, 1/28, 1/30 and 2/11.  In addition to these recorded absences, I was aware of W***’s absence, and more particularly of his extraordinarily late arrival, on many other occasions. My awareness of W***’s absence was especially keen after an out of class conversation, around midterm, in which he assured me that he would not be late or absent again.  It should also be clear from the statements of his group members that W*** missed class with inordinate frequency.

W***’s grades in the class were:

Class participation (10%)		50/100
Individual assignments (35%)	70/100
Portfolio (25%)			70/100
Group assignments (30%)		75/100
Course average			69.5

As you can see, I rounded W***'s grade up before I dropped a letter grade.  According to my own stated policy, W***’s grade for the course should actually have been an F.

For the record, I would like to say that I greatly resent the inappropriate manner in which W*** approached me about this matter.  He was rude and bullying.  He seemed to think that he could make me change his grade by threatening to “cause problemsâ€ for me, i.e. by filing a claim of discrimination and by encouraging his classmates to file grade appeals.  I am appalled that a college senior would resort to such behavior, and even more appalled that he has (he says) successfully enlisted his classmates in the execution of his “vendetta.â€  In fact, I am sickened by the whole mess.  These students have obviously missed the point of higher education completely.
</div>