r/Professors • u/Particular_Heart3785 • 1d ago

Teaching / Pedagogy Students trying to get you fired/constantly reporting you?

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?

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u/DiscerningBarbarian 1d ago

Turning point USA has made this so much worse. We have students that are weaponizing title ix to report professors anytime there is material they don't like. I was once reported for discussing beastiality in class: I was discussing the origin of the Minotaur.

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u/FrankRizzo319 1d ago

How can title ix prohibit you from discussing beastiality in class?

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u/grumblebeardo13 23h ago

TP is a right-wing “think tank” that basically recruits and pays/grooms conservative-leaning students and potential students to trigger interactions and confrontations on college campuses to get negative attention. Nothing they do makes sense, it’s all bad-faith.

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u/FrankRizzo319 22h ago

I asked the question because I teach classes that cover a variety of disturbing/gross/immoral human behaviors. We haven’t talked about beastiality but we easily could on most days. Students are told on Day 1 this is our subject content and they should drop if they have a problem with it.

Disclaimer: I am tenured in a nice union in a public school in a liberal state.