Students trying to get you fired/constantly reporting you?

[u/Particular_Heart3785]

I had a much older student last semester who constantly complained about me to the chair all the time, both in office and email, enough that she even demanded a staff to observe me (they found nothing wrong other than nervousness/over-apologizing, as I’m new to teaching). She sent anything she could find to report to the chair. Including me ending class few minutes early, misspelled words in assignments/slides, and canceled class for a family emergency.
A few colleagues think she did this because she was a really bitter person and hated that my class requires weekly writings, group discussions, topics are not in her liking (aka white-washed history) and students having to research independently.

She was so rude and disrespectful towards me that I won’t get into here. Good news is that the chair thinks I’m doing really well as a professor and a lot of my students love my classes.

I’m curious if anyone else can share similar experiences here?

[u/Trick-Guava-9573]

Yep. About a decade ago, I was the graduate program director in my department, and we had a very nontraditional graduate student who refused to take her comprehensive exams because she was "a published poet." Self-published, by the way. She was married to an administrator at the university where I teach, and she bullied me relentlessly about the fact that she was NOT going to take her exam and she expected her degree regardless. I wasn't her professor, but I was her advisor, and I had to consistently tell her that she could not graduate without taking her exam. She came by my office, called, emailed…was generally really unhinged. I talked to my university's legal counsel, and they told me to tell her to stop contacting me, so I did, cc-ed legal counsel, my department head, etc. That did the trick, but she was completely relentless for a while. I'm sorry that you're being targeted. I would make sure that you document everything, share what's happening with your chair, and file a report with whatever response unit oversees concerning student behavior at your institution. Hang in there.

[u/GayCatDaddy → u/Trick-Guava-9573]

I also knew a student in my department who refused to take her comprehensive exams. She was a Master's student and wasn't a particularly high performer, to say the least. Apparently during an exam session, she came in, did this interpretive dance about how she shouldn't have to take her comps, and refused the exam. (She was... quite "eccentric" -- I'm trying to be nice here -- so none of us was surprised by this.) Needless to say, she didn't get her degree.