Amy Bishop, Christopher Dorner personality and false accusation

[JackN415]

Last edited Tue Jun 4, 2013, 08:36 PM - Edit history (4)

This is purely a personal story and is never meant to be used anecdotally to construe as something more significant than the simple story itself.

A dear friend of mine is a college professor. She received a shocking notice of allegations against her by one of her students who received a less-than-optimal grade from her. The student, who also happens to be a minority, sent an e-mail to the dept chair, and threatened to bring the matter to a student association that represents the interest of minority students.

The most serious charge, besides typical "sour-grape" charges such as being a bad professor, disorganized, etc. is that she has a personal bias against him, possibly because of his race, and unfairly gave him a bad grade because of it.

The student's e-mail was quite heavy and serious to the point that the dept chair, who knew her too well to give any weight to such charges, asked her to delay her planned travel to address the issue, out of his concern that this kind of thing has a way to become bigger and "badder" (sic) than expected.

She had a coordinated meeting with the student to review his grade in the presence of another faculty who represents the dean of UG education (which was probably good for her safety as well). She went through in complete details each and every homework, quiz, and exam that the student did, showing how they were scored, and compared with the class average.

She showed the record of the student missing quizzes, of being habitually late in homework submission, of her e-mail imploring him not to be late again. It became clear that she was compassionate for him that she gave him partial credits for several late submissions that, according to the written course policy, should not have been counted.

The total score for the student, even with her leniency should have earned him an F in most courses. Yet, she bent the curve so badly that he had a decent passing grade.

The matter was settled and the student no longer complained. He accepted the result.

What is so disheartening about this is how a bad student like him, who was in a special program designed to make sure he gets in college and graduate, can be such a bully, frivolously abuse the system, play the race card, and incur inconvenience and burden on people like her who actually go out of their way to help him.

Talking about biting the hand that helps you. He bullies without consequence. In older time, such a student can be dismissed from a university for that type of conduct.

Frankly, after I saw his work in the course,* I think she (and perhaps many other instructors, including myself in the past) did a disservice to him and society by pushing him along and giving him a degree. Yes, he will graduate and earn his BS degree. It will be a success story of a disadvantaged minority who makes it through to become a professional.

I am sure there are many, and have personally seen many well-deserved students who work hard and come through in spite of life adversity and disadvantages. Yet, perhaps for every 100 decent kids, there may be one like this guy, whose attitude and manner - I joked to her - suggests he should have studied to become a prosecutor (based on the way he levied charges against her), or a political activist rather than a science/engineering professional.

Again. This is only about a single individual. But if he had not played the race card, I would not think the dept chair would have had to intervene (covering his behind so as not be viewed as insensitive to minority students), making a small matter such as a grade review into an affair with the involvement of the dean of UG etc. She had to delay her trip, spent a whole day until 2 AM to prepare her documentation.

BTW, she is also a liberal democrat.

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*Per FERPA, I was allowed see his work at her request as a member of the review process. But she waived the need for me to be present at the meeting because we all knew that the UG dean representative was sufficient.

============ Final notes ================
This is added on 6/4 with new insight about the case.

1- The objectionable expression "race card" is removed from the title and please ignore it elsewhere. This OP wasn't aware of the derogatory nature of it and regrets if any one offended by it.

2- This is about problematic personality (mental case) such as Amy Bishop & Christopher Dorner who had distorted perception of reality and rationalized their failure by blaming others. This is a mental illness that has nothing to do with race.

3- For Dorner, there is a recent article about his case: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/04/dorner-firing-justified-review-finds/2390125/

(Civil rights attorney Connie) Rice, a longtime department watchdog and frequent critic, was allowed to review the findings.

"The firing was justified and his allegations are completely unfounded," said Rice, who spent two weeks reviewing the findings. "This guy needed to go. And the question was, even if he needed to go, did the LAPD get rid of him in a way that was illegitimate? And the answer for me was no."

Dorner claimed he was let go because he was black. My cheer to Ms. Connie Rice for having the courage to call it as it is. This guy is a mental case, a walking time bomb who used his race to rationalize his behavior.

4- Had Ms Amy Bishop had some sort of attribute, such as lesbian, she might have accused her dept for denying her tenure because of her sexual orientation.

The point is these mental cases look for justification for their sociopath actions.

It dawned on me that the student in this case bears an attitude that is strikingly similar to what reported about C. Dorner. This student hasn't exploded yet and I hope I won't read about him in the news some day.