Rogers’s Rules reports on the curious case of Prof. Priya Venkatesan, who has threatened to sue undergrads who gave her negative marks in their evaluations of her course. Here’s the text of an e-mail the nutty professor sent to her former students:
Dear former class members of Science, Technology and Society: I tried to send an email through my server but got undelivered messages. I regret to inform you that I am pursuing a lawsuit in which I am accusing some of you (whom shall go unmentioned in this email) of violating Title VII of anti-federal [SIC] discrimination laws. The feeling that I am getting from the outside world is that Dartmouth is considered a bigoted place, so this may not be news and I may be successful in this lawsuit. I am also writing a book detailing my experiences as your instructor, which will “name names” so to speak. I have all of your evaluations and these will be reproduced in the book.
Priya
Have a nice day.
Okaaaay. Even if you choose to overlook this Dartmouth professor’s abuse of the word “whom” and her failure to grasp the legal definition of discrimination, the above doesn’t sound like anyone I would ever want to be taught by.
Considering that university students aren’t state actors and have a damned good defense in the form of their own free speech rights, I doubt Priya would be able to find a lawyer willing to file this suit for her.
The Roger’s Rules post drew an impressive number of comments from the academic community — a few of them only slightly more coherent than those of Priya herself, but still plenty of substantive dialogue to make for an engaging read.
From the annals of the academy: Prof sues students for criticizing her
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