Thread by @JohnFPfaff

As faculty debate this, just wanted to share my thoughts on why I think mandatory P/F is the right response to this crisis.

Basically, if we unpack the “grades allow students to prove they can excel under stress” argument, it quickly becomes clear that... they won’t. At all.

What grades will reflect is that some students:

1. Are wealthy enough to live alone, as libraries close and we are crammed together more. In NYC, this is huge.

2. Don’t have kids now out of school. Even if both parents are home, this disadvantages women.

3. Don’t have to care for ailing parents, or other siblings as parents self-isolate.

4. Don’t have underlying conditions that induce stress.

5. Have parents with the resources to look after themselves, and to stay (relatively) safe.

6. Don’t lose that part-time job that was making law school possible, and now have to study while worrying about rent. Or food.

7. Don’t happen to get sick themselves. Don’t happen to have a parent get sick. Grandparent. Close friend. Kid. Lottery upon lottery.

I could go on, but the point should be clear:

Any sort of grade won’t reflect “ability” nearly as much as it will reflect “inherited circumstance” and “luck.”

It’ll be almost all noise.

And, to two other points:

What about 1Ls hoping to rely on second-semester grades to pull things up for OCI?

Fair point!

But first, see above: we aren’t actually going to do that.

Second—and this will be cold comfort for many 1Ls, but we must be honest and act accordingly: OCI will be... bad.

If the Imperial College study is right, we may not even be able to hold OCI.

Even if we don’t see an August spike and we can hold OCI, the market will be grim. That’s awful.

The only silver lining: 2L and 3L grades will matter more. There will be more time to do well.

Finally, many have said “this will encourage faculty slack.”

Yes, it will. And it SHOULD.

Faculty, like other humans, are struggling. Kids at home, sick parents, unsick parents who keep acting recklessly, upheaval and chaos.

We, like students, like everyone, can’t do it all.

And, like with students, the demand that faculty do it all will burden the most vulnerable the most—the single parents, those with poorer backgrounds who have to care for aging parents or siblings more, etc.

And if we demand faculty do the impossible, what will happen? Bad work.

Insist that faculty do it all, and we will try. But we’ll make mistakes. We are, after all, scared and vulnerable humans.

Take all the problematic noise from the chaos in students’ lives and then magnify it w the chaos in our own.

We are in a global pandemic. Many students and faculty are in places not bending the curve. Or have family there.

Everyone’s lives are upside down.

This is NOT the time to see who can “excel.” It is time for all to look after their physical and mental health. Period.