Student gets back at lazy professor who unfairly failed half the class for no reason

We've all had annoying teachers over the years but some can be incredibly apathetic to the point it hampers your progress. One Redditor opened up about one such professor who made life hell for students of his class and had made it a habit to fail half the class. The Redditor decided to turn the tables on the professor. They shared the story in a Reddit thread titled: Tell me to appeal my unfair grade? You got it. 

"I was a student studying computer science in the midwest. While most of my professors were okay, there was one that was notorious, let’s call him Dr. J. He was an old, effete, lazy professor with a thick southeast asian accent," wrote the Redditor, reported Bored Panda. He had been teaching for 30 years and had embraced the typical semi-retired lifestyle of the tenured professor. "I never understood a word he said. He never followed his course syllabus or even answered emails," wrote the original poster. 

"Here’s the kicker: he would fail, regularly, HALF the class, for a required upper level computer architecture course," they wrote. "This is exceptionally rare and completely unfair for a class at this level, especially at a State school that isn’t a research uni." Students had no way around it. "Dr. J. Failing a class at the level of this course could be devastating to your degree path since it was a required course," they wrote. The professor didn't even stop to think the results were a poor reflection on his teaching skills. "Dr. J couldn’t be bothered, despite the class average for his exams being something like 2/15," they wrote.

The Redditor was one of the students who were failed. "Lo and behold, I’m one of the 16 out of 31 students in the class that he failed that semester, and I failed having gotten very similar scores to a couple other students, but they passed. I went to Dr J’s office after the scores had been applied to our transcripts online to discuss the matter. Dr. J wouldn’t have any of it. There are “many ways I grade my students and you failed. If you don’t like it, you’re free to appeal the grade but you won’t get it,'” their concerns were dismissed. 

They were riled up by the apathy of the professor. The Redditor learned that neither students nor fellow professors liked Dr. J. Their original plan was to file an appeal and move on, "because I knew I’d get it." The Redditor knew they had to do something about the professor. It wasn't just about him failing. "So I reached out to everyone in the class and set a meeting in a conference room in the library. I guess I underestimated how much everyone hated Dr. J because everyone from the class showed up! I laid out my plan: EVERYONE file a grade appeal, even if you passed if it’ll help your GPA. It was the happiest I’d ever seen that group of people the entire semester," they wrote.

Over 22 people filed appeals. "You should’ve seen the look on the department chair’s face when we showed up with a stack of appeals. No department in the history of the school had ever had that many appeals/complaints for a single course, let alone for a single professor. I know this because the dean sat us all down and said so. There were so many appeals they had to bring us into the faculty panel in groups of 3-4, not that it mattered, the whole thing was a formality as the die was cast," they wrote. Within two weeks, action was taken. "Everyone had gotten their appeal approved. Dr. J was given a formal warning by the uni and had most of his courses taken away and are now taught by other people. He still holds onto the computer architecture course and some freshman intro classes, but from what I’ve heard he hasn’t failed anyone for a looooong time," they wrote, before adding, "So if you’re a lazy prick of a professor, be warned: you might get someone like me for a student, who foments an insurrection in your class and turns your job upside down."