Samantha: From Zero to American Hero // 233

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is important. This is I like that this happened
because we we have national news about marking undergraduate essays.
This is like, it's our lucky day.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I wanted to do the whole episode about this.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
We'll see how it goes. This is our lucky day.
Like how often do you get when it comes to
marketing undergraduate essays? That's one of that's our things, all right.
If you can't tell, Eric's quite excited about this.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, it's. Eric feels similar about this as he did
about what was that other thing that we made him
do that he hated.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
The Bentham's Bulldogs.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh yeah, the critique of analytic philosophy.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
And updated parody of Alan's so call and Jean brickmong
whatever his name is.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
If you don't like reading and reflect on children's ability
to think, then maybe you're in the wrong profession.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, I'm starting to think that.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
So this is as an objective description as I can
give a girl. An Ohio girl submitted a paper in
a psych course. A they had to read a paper
which I couldn't read the whole thing because it's paywalld.
But the paper is about peer relations in gender and

(01:31):
it was a study. So the study found that popular
kids high school age. I think popular kids were high
in something called gender typicality, which I'm not sure how
they measure it, but it just means like typically masculine
traits boys and typically feminine traits girls. But it showed

(01:52):
that popular kids were high in gender typicality and teased
kids were lower on average in gender typicality. So a young,
a young god fearing, born again woman respond, and we.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Are in Oklahoma, by the way, which I think is
like a worthwhile context. Maybe you already said that, but
I think, you know, just for the sat the saturation
of religious people, I think you said that. I think
I said no, no, no, it was actually University of Oklahoma.
I'm looking at it right now.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Oh that changes? Does that change anything?

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well, it just means that, like, I mean, there's religious
nuts probably everywhere in the United States, but I mean
the concentration in Oklahoma is certainly going to be higher.
I mean, Ohio has got plenty too, but I think
I think Oklahoma is, you know, especially especially religious.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Having been to neither, my prejudice is that Oklahoma is
probably even stupider than Ohio. But this is this is
my prejudice I'm going back to my objective assessment. I'm
sorry for saying Ohio and if I offend any Ohians.
So she responded to this in a in a I
believe it was a third year course. I didn't see

(03:06):
where it was, but someone in our discord told me
it was third year. So that makes everything here just
like slightly worse.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
I thought it was first year.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
I would like to see I would like to see
evidence to either effect. But she responded in her paper,
having had to read this article that says she said.
She said she doesn't endorse bullying, let's be clear, but
that God also made gender, so she does not agree
with the findings of this paper. And again the findings

(03:36):
were that gender based teasing suggests negative mental health outcomes
for high school students who are more gender atypical.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
So you're disagreeing with like an empirical finding. You're like,
I found this, and then she's like, no, you didn't,
or it's like I don't agree with that empirical finding
makes no sense.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Well, of course this started as Eric's anticipating this started
a one of our favorite things, a culture warrit skirmish,
and the skirmish the goalpost moved a little bit, not
that much, but the skirmish became about whether religious opinions
are valid content for a university paper, which perhaps should

(04:26):
be beside the point, yet it is not.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah, the question is, can you, instead of responding to
what the assignment asks for, just write something religious and
random and still receive grades for it, Which the obvious
answer to that is no, you shouldn't be allowed to
do that. And yet this is being blown up into

(04:50):
some kind of internet phenomenon.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Well for other reasons. Right, Like I said, I said
the or the goalposts had shifted. So actually I thought
it was.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Bad when I thought it was undergraduate.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
It is undergraduate.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
I mean, I mean first year. I should have said
I think.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
It is first year. Honestly, I think I don't know.
I don't know who's getting like thirty or from. But
my understanding was it his first year.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
But maybe if his third year, then this is just bananas.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Well, I'm on here to say, and this is not,
by the way, the beginning of my why I left
the left right wing grift, but i am actually I'm
actually on the side of the student who the the
woke mob piled onto this girl saying she's retarded, but
we shouldn't feel so bad for her, even though she

(05:41):
is the wrong party here in my opinion, of course.
But she's also since been presented with a a citation
of recognition from the Oklahoma government. And while the TA
has been placed on administrative leave, if it's paid administ leave,
then that's like, that's a vacation from all.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
But the intimidation wins the day.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Hold on. But the crucial point here is against.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
You bullying, yet not against intimidating inside.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Well, she was given a zero though, and the instructions okay,
So like the instructions say, uh, you know, a reaction
paper to the article, okay, that includes a thoughtful reaction
the material presented. Then there's like some technicalities, and then
it says, please remember the your reaction paper should not
be a summary, right, so don't summarize the paper, but

(06:32):
rather a thoughtful discussion of some aspect of the article.
Possible approaches are a discussion of why you feel the
topic is important and worthy of study, So why you
feel it's important, an application of the study or results
to your own experiences, Okay, and you know, and then
the grading scale, it's it's graded on twenty five points,

(06:55):
and it's evaluated on does it show a clear tie
into the assigned article. Does the paper present thoughtful reaction
or response to the article rather than a summary? Right?
Is the paper clearly written? So I definitely think this
paper is a fail. Okay, I definitely think it's like,
definitely hasn't done fifty percent of that. But I think
the instructions are vague enough and leave room for don't

(07:17):
summarize the article, talk about it in response to your
own experiences, and react to it. Right, So it's like
a reaction paper, right, It's not like it's not Remember,
it's not like an essay. Right, It's one of those
reaction papers. Those reaction papers, a lot of the time
in classes that I've graded for are sometimes just marked
on a pass fail. Right, They're just like but in

(07:40):
this case they mark it out of twenty five points.
I guess my point of saying it's a reaction paper
is I interpret it to be the standards are going
to be a little bit lower than on an actual essay. Okay,
the author, the student, she writes a bunch of stuff
that I obviously think is bad, but you know, says
like God made male and female differently and stereotypes and

(08:02):
kind of tries to argue against the paper based on
against like the paper they're reacting to on religious grounds
and uh. And then the the professors like feedback, the
tas feedback kind of talks about, well, you know, I'm
not deducting points because of your you have certain beliefs,
but instead of deducting point for your posting a reaction

(08:25):
paper that does not answer the questions of this assignment,
contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in
a scientific class, and is at times offensive. Goes on
to go like, go through a bunch of stuff, most
of which I agreed with. I think. The thing that
I disagree with and I think Pills maybe disagrees with

(08:45):
is giving a zero. Like I it takes a lot
for me to give a zero in an assignment, Like
I think it's it's extremely punitive to give a zero.
The only time I give a zero, and this is
like basically our participation assignment. It's a reaction paper, Okay,
to give a zero on that is, in my opinion,

(09:06):
in most context that I'm aware of, pedagogically highly punitive, Okay.
And when you go through and you read the reaction
of the TA, and some of the things the TA said,
it does sound a little bit like ideologically punishing the students. Now,
am I saying that this is a great paper that
it should even pass. No, I'm thinking maybe forty percent,

(09:26):
like but zero seemed crazy. So unfortunately, in this case,
in my opinion, this conservative grifter student has a point.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Well, she's going to be happy to hear you say that,
because she's soon going to be a right wing news
news figure. Probably probably, I just checked. I thought this
was Ohio and Ohio is Ohio is twenty sixth and
educational outcomes Oklahoma is forty eight.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
I think I have to reiterate my apologies to OHI
and some Oklahoma. This makes sense, Eric, Would you like
to write a reactive statement to anything that victors said there?

Speaker 3 (10:11):
Yeah, well, it's all besides the point, because this student
should clearly be expelled for the way that they went
about this. Like that's all you try. You're upset about
a grade, so you try to demonize your TA on
social media. Like if all of the universities in the

(10:36):
US weren't in the middle of collapsing on all of
their values that they've been holding and capitulating to the right,
then they would, in any other circumstance they would expel
this student or at least like punish them for this
intimidation tactic of like basically docsing your ta. All the

(10:58):
information were getting about this, by the way, is coming
from the troll accounts that are trying to boost the
signal on this bullshit claim. Which it's like a paper
worth twenty five marks, like it could be worth like
point five percent of this person's overall grade, and I'm
gonna deduct it's out of twenty five. Remember I'm gonna

(11:19):
deduct ten points. It says if your paper is one
word short of six hundred and fifty words, I'm going
to dedect ten points out of twenty five. I'm not
going to I'm gonna give you a zero if it's
under six hundred and twenty words.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Oh well, no evidence that that happen.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
There's no evidence that they met the gride. I'm just saying, look,
how look how low the bar is for losing ten points.
Look how low the bar is for losing all the grades.
The paper couldn't be worth that much if if half
of the point of the paper is to hit six
hundred and fifty words, which, by the way, we don't
even know that they hit the six hundred and fifty

(11:57):
word and papers not turned in by the deadline will
for all we know, this was turned in late or
under the word count. We don't know, because again all
of our information is coming from the very troll accounts
that are trying to turn this into a thing.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
It's not true. We have the TIA's comments explaining the
grade in Nowhere in those comments does it say was
under the under the word.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Where were they posted? Where were those comments posted? They
must have come on X through the troll accounts.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
No, No, okay, So okay, so you're just gonna you're
you're just you're just questioning the validity of the screenshots.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
I'm saying, we probably don't have all the information here anyway,
and we're trying to weigh in on this thing that
is clearly and clearly missing the entire point, which is
that this is fucking like, low down bullshit. This is unethical.
You do not do this. If you are unhappy with
the grade you received, go through the proper channels. You
do don't dox people on social media. Don't start a firestorm,

(12:55):
and don't try to intimidate your grater that this is
not the right way.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
To do it.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
All this other thing, all these other hairs were splitting,
are bullshit compared to that main point.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
I mean, I actually strongly disagree with you, like in
the sense that there is a power differential between a TA,
a professor and a student. Okay, but you're making it
set like, yes, it's bad. I agree that the conservative Yeah,
and the power differential is the TA and professor have
more power then, and like, obviously now she's transformed that situation.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
What's wrong with that? That's the way it should be.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
If if this was like a course, if if the
ideological positions were reversed, you would have no problem with it.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
If I'm unhappy with a grade my TA gives me,
I go to the professor and say, hey, can you
have another look at this? And the professor says, yes,
I will have another look at this, but I shall
warn you that I may adjust upwards. Or if I
actually don't agree with the TA and I think I
should grade you lower, then I will do that. Do
you still want to submit the paper to me to

(13:55):
be read? I would say yes, I would not say.
And if I found out that one of the students
went behind my ta's back posted it on social media
to try and start all this ship on my TA,
I would expel that student from my class. Fuck power differentials,
fuck all that bullshit. That's so stupid.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Clear about a few you're talking about what we don't know, Eric,
So we also don't know that she did not go
to the professor she did.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
I know she did submit it's in the universe.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
Do you know that she took it to social media? No,
we don't did this we don't tu Oh, so we're
not talking about it right now then because we don't
know about it.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
TPUs A posted this, Okay, so her campus. I believe
it's our campus, TPUSA, So she probably went to the
campus TPUSA. Maybe she knew it was going to be
done with it, but maybe she didn't.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
But you're assuming a lot, Eric.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
No, I am not assuming a lot. Where this has
like been thrown to the court of public opinion, like
this is not right. Okay, maybe it's not her fault.
Maybe it's not her fault that all this is now
out in public, but it's completely unethical.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
And but that dodges that that dodges the main point.
This shouldn't have been a zero. Shouldn't have been a zero?

Speaker 3 (15:14):
How is that the main point? How is that the
main point?

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Because that point is because if the professor would have just.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
Given it is a pretty bad paper.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
The professor would have just given twelve points or eleven
points out of twenty five and with.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
You be happy, and then we could focus on the.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Fact that the student, the student could have the student
could that the student could have then tried to don
t a then and then everyone would have been like.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
The fact that age is yet again being put dragged
over the coals on social media.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
I don't like the person being dragged in the.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
Right wing reaction of.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, don't give zeros. If you wouldn't have given a zero,
nothing this would have happened. Just failed the students and
give them like twelve points and then and then and
then you, as the TA, would not be in this situation.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
Right you hear that, trans community, if you're a TA,
don't give zero because you'll be doxed on social.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Telling you many years of grading, it's crazy to give
a zero, like the student submitted an assignment. I'm assuming
within the word count because the professor did not say
anything about the word count. I'm willing to be persuaded
differently if new information comes out. But based on what
I see here, I think.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Talking grades a discussion of why you feel the topic
is important. The paper did not discuss why the topic
is important. No, it did an application of the study
or results to your own experiences. The paper did not
apply the results to their own experiences. Does the paper
tie in to the assigned article. No, it does not

(16:41):
show a clear tie in. They mentioned the article, they
mentioned the existence of the article. That is not a
tie in. Does the paper present a thoughtful reaction or
response to the article, which is ten points by the way, No,
it does not do that at all. So zero is
a pretty reason. Is the paper clearly written last five points?

(17:01):
But drum roll please, no it is not. Okay, there's
a zero right there? Easy done, deal, done deal. But
oh I don't agree with the zero. Let's go on
social media and get everybody yelling.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
I think is highly contaminated by your ideological outrage. There's
no way in hell that you would I think.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
Your ideological I think what ideological?

Speaker 2 (17:24):
I mean, I don't agree with anything that the student says.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Oh yeah, because you get to play the centrist.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
It's not a cris'.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
I don't have a fucking ideology either. I'm just evaluating
the facts, and the fact is that this person is
getting intimidated and cyber bullied over the fact that this
was posted on the letting.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
The evaluation of the grade be could be be affected
by the fact that this student decided to docs. I'm
in isolation.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
If you didn't, I just I just evaluated the grade
for you right there. I think zero is fine.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
I'm happy opinion.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
I think zero is not fine based on the rubric,
I would have given it an eight, which is still
what is that like? Thirty?

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, I think around there it's fine.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
Whether or not. I'm okay with the zero. I just
think that's the less important part is the actual grade
the paper received. But the docs important part of this
entire thing. You don't give a shit about the fact.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
That the doxing wouldn't have been possible if the if
the TA didn't give a zero. If the TA didn't
give a zero, the docs would serve it.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
Oh, I see they don't observe it. I see what
you're saying. No one said, I see what you're saying. Okay, fine,
let's leave us move on then, because we've got to
the bottom of that.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
The reason the dosing worked is because the evangelical Christian
right in America is under the presumption that all education,
the entire education system and especially the university system, is
just like a conveyor belt pushing out woke idealogues and
giving this a zero. That like, that's why the zero

(18:59):
maut because if it's if it's not a zero, then
then we have an argument to make. But the zero
produced the thing that you're upset exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
I get. I get this all fits into the nice, prefigured,
bullshit right wing frame that XI has become so known
and loved for. I get that it fits into that.
But if gotten, why am I? Why am I being
like absurd to be annoyed that this is happening?

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Because if you if she had gotten an eight, which
I think it deserves, then this wouldn't have happened exactly.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
Oh oh sorry, I didn't didn't realize. Didn't realize that
like a tiny grade on a twenty five point paper
is is like worth that?

Speaker 1 (19:45):
No, a punitive grade, That's what the difference is because
if it's a zero, it's either deserved or punitive.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
How punitive is it? How much of this okay, o grade,
how much of the overall grade is this? Is this
reaction paper worth?

Speaker 1 (19:58):
It can't be much, Eric, you study semiotics, A zero
does not mean a zero. The meaning of the zero
is not the number, and it.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Depends on the weighting of the assignment. Is what zero
really means?

Speaker 1 (20:10):
A zero is a message. A zero is a message here.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, it's a message that that was a terribly written paper,
and if you don't do that on the next one,
you're also going to get a poor grade. That's what
zeros are for. I told you my professors would often
say great, the first one, really harshly, so that they
read your feedback, take it into account, and actually try
to improve their writing for the next assignment when the

(20:35):
weight is going to be heavier and it's really going
to matter. That's why you assign low weight papers to
diagnose their writing and to give them feedback before they
start getting into the papers that have real heavy grade
point weights.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Okay, even for my strongest piece of evidence that this
is not a zero is that in the rubric five
points are designated for clarity of righting. So even if
you are a hard marker I, this is again all
of this is subjective, and we're comparing subjectivity with the
illusion of objectivity, which is the entire point of marking right.

(21:13):
But at minimum, this is a two out of five
on clarity of writing. It's not a zero. And then
the other category is linked to the article the the
article is referenced three times to say it's a zero,
which would be applicable if it were referenced zero times,
but it's barely referenced, which is not which is not

(21:36):
not referenced, so minimum, and then the TA says. The
TA articulates in the comments that the assignment is guilty
of heavily using personal ideology over empirical evidence and is offensive.
Now offensive you should just throw out because you can't
evaluate a zeer but personal ideology over in pirical evidence

(22:01):
when the assignment instructions specifically ask for personal ideology and
never once ask for empirical evidence.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Exactly so that the professor or TA snuck in extra
requirements in their comments that weren't in the requirements originally.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
That's that's what we're that's this week, folks, that's what
we're doing here. Welcome every week back to the pill Pod,
where we look up how grades were given and then
we talk because that's clearly you guys are being fucking ridiculous.
That's clearly why we're here is being stubborn, you're being
week out. Oh great, next week we're going to evaluate
the grades of some other tas, because that's exactly why

(22:40):
we're talking about this paper, isn't it? That is the reason,
because we disagree with how this TA graded, this this
reaction paper. And next week we're going to have another
essay for you, and we're going to discuss how the grade,
whether the grade really reflects the quality of the assignment
that was given, because that's what's important here, isn't it.
That's why we're talking about this.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
It's academic news.

Speaker 3 (23:01):
Well, to be fair, Oh why is it news? Because
oh that's that's oh news alert. An assignment that doesn't
deserve a zero was given a zero. Stop the fucking
presses and get on your podcast and let's tell everyone
about it, because that's the reason we're talking about it,
isn't it Because it got a zero? That's the reason

(23:22):
we're talking about it.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Well, we're talking about it because because it's it's culture culturos,
how many unjust zeros are out there.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
I just I'm sick to think about how many papers
that don't deserve zero are getting zeros.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
It's a cultural war example. And I also think it's
a it's a it's kind of a roar shock test
because because conservatives looked at this paper and they were like, oh, like,
she's just explaining her like passionate, heartfelt beliefs, and like
they think it's like I don't know if any of
them said it was like great, but a lot of
them were like she definitely shouldn't have failed, right. And
then there's it's.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
Just is a trans person. That's just a complete coincidence
that the ta is a trans person, isn't it right,
That's what you're gonna tell me next. It's just a
complete coincidence. And it has nothing to do with any
of this, right, is that what we're saying?

Speaker 2 (24:10):
No, obviously, that's obviously like that.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
Has everything to do with it. That's the reason we're
talking about it is because a trans ta is getting
raked over the coals on X, but we're talking about
something different.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
I agree, like, like, obviously this is like, this is
this is absolutely this is absolute catnip for the conservative
outrage machine.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
But yet you felt the need to emphasize.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Don't give it a zero, and then this wouldn't happen.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
Oh yeah, Oh, don't give it a zero, because that's
really what this is about. It's about the unjust grade
the student has received.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
But you want a.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Case for why this is about more than one paper
in one course in a shitty state. This what this
actually is about is how do we maintain this is
our job, by the how to maintain.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
Easy podcast to do if that was our standard of
for entertainment.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
How do we maintain the illusion of whatever you want
to call this? How do you maintain the illusion of
academic integrity? Like what are grades actually measuring? If they're
measuring nothing, then we shouldn't be giving them. But if
we are to maintain the illusion, then you are not.
You cannot punish people with grades, regardless of whether you're

(25:26):
a trans or not. And if you believe that you
can punish that which offends you with grades, then the
illusion of free and Korea and whatever collapses and universities
are exactly what Christian conservatives say.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
It is like I've read papers. I've read papers just
like this, Like I've taught a couple courses or sorry,
thia to a couple of courses, Like I remember one
was about like race and privilege from a global perspective.
It was like a politics class, and I had like
a bunch of students who were like super woke but bad,
and they just like submitted a response that was like

(25:59):
basically the same as this, except just being like it's
really bad when people are like mean to trans people
and like, but they don't engage with any of the
articles with they don't talk about they're just saying, like
from my personal lived experience, this happens, and I would
never have given those a zero, but they were like
just as bad. It's just like this is just the
same thing, but from the other side, like no, like

(26:20):
no thought, no, like no real substantive engagement with the article,
like fail. Obviously I agree with you. Like the reason
we're talking about it is not just because it's like
some person who got a zero. It's because it's activated
the conservative outrage machine and it's contributing to this cultural war.
So it's like a cultural war story. I understand, Like

(26:43):
your outrage at the way this is being weaponized. But
it also just seems weird to just focus to only
be angry at the weaponization and not like things that
our side could do to make sure things can't be
weaponized against us. Right, just don't do those things.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
I don't know what our side. I don't know what
our side whatever.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Like broadly.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
Means grade accurately, Grade accurately, so you don't give fuel
to the.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
Old Yeah, why not?

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Why not?

Speaker 3 (27:16):
That's that's ridiculous. That's like a defeatist mentality.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Why you think she should have punished this this person
with grades?

Speaker 3 (27:25):
I think I think a TA should have the discretion
to grade however they want. And again, if the student's
unhappy with the grade, there are channels to deal with that. Like,
I don't see you have a problem with the way
the TA has graded the paper. Okay, fine, Like what
if I I believe I'm marking a history paper and

(27:47):
it presents a view of, say, how World War One
started that I disagree with because I have a different view,
and I give them a bad grade. That now, you're
not dragging in any of the culture war stuff. We're
not dragging in any ideology, although you could argue that
that is ideology, I guess, and what is ideology anyway,

(28:08):
because we've been talking about that for weeks and never
get to the fucking bottom of it. And I grade
that paper harshly because it does not present the view
that I subscribe to. You're saying people should be perfect
and unbiased, and despite the fact that they went on
a religious anti trans tirade in the paper. The trans

(28:29):
person grading the paper should be objective and detached enough
to give an objective grade to this person and not
take it personally.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
Yes, even if they do, that's.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Literally the job.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
Oh so you're asked, Oh so tas aren't supposed to
be human beings with feelings.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
I think Christianity is Christianity. But I'm not gonna. I'm
not gonna if I ask for an opinion. I can't
doc marks off of Christians, even though I think they're stupid.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
I would give.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
Given that paper. I would have given that paper an
equally bad grade based on what I've read.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
You would have given it a zero. I just I
actually don't believe you. I actually do not believe you.
I do not believe that you would have given this paper.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Is based on based on the requirements you showed me
and what I read this paper containing. Yes, the paper
was batshit crazy. I don't understand what you would have
given any grades to. You would have given a for
effort grades. Talk about fucking talk about fucking undermining the
integrity of grading. You give a person grades just for

(29:35):
submitting lauram Ipsom into your inbox and they get grades
for that, that's fucking bullshit. That's going to undermine the
integrity of grading.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
It wasn't Laura Ipsom, though, it was responding congratulations.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
For submitting a bunch of words on time that had
nothing to do with what we asked for.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
They had something to do. I get an.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
Assignment, oh it mentions the paper, or here write an
essay on the Iliad? The Iliad was a book. The end.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Oh good.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
I can't give you zero for that because I might
get dosed on the internet, so I better just give
you something now.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Her paper represents the article three times. Actually, things that the.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Mentioned demonstrated that knew the article exists, maybe didn't read
it at all, but knew it existed, knew that they
were asked to write a paper about the article. This
is a ridiculous conversation.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
It's funny.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
I mean, I thought I was I was gonna go
somewhere else with this because I didn't know we were
going to dispute this whole thing.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
But the whole thing is very It just.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Triggered the hell at Eric. I mean, I get I
get it, Like I'm also outraged by the way that
this is being weaponized. I just feel like it's a
bit beside the point, like it is a major part
of it, that it's being weaponized. But I agree with you.
I'm with you that it's like horrible that that's happening.
But which, by the way, I think in the statement

(30:58):
from the university, it did say that the student had
previously submitted like like like had submitted like a what's
it called, like a kind of a dispute, right, like
a contested the grade. So the student did do that,
they filed a claim. And I think that like were
that to go to that, like you know, second, look,

(31:22):
she should win, Like it shouldn't be a zero, it
should be like an eight. I think pills is right,
like eight nine whatever something super low. But I think,
you know, and then and then now she's filing like
a like a illegal discrimination of religious rights right, which
is in a whole other can of worms.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
And the only reason we're hearing about any of this
is because of it. It's a trans person grading a
paper that expresses a very religious viewpoint, and that's why
we're hearing about any of this. And that's what I'm
trying to say. It's not about the grade itself. Like,
think about what you're asking somebody to do, saying you

(32:01):
get a paper like that and you think, like, I'm
I'm gay, or I'm trans, or I'm this or that,
like I'm on the wrong end of the culture war
right now, I better not give this paper a low grade.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Decide it's not that it's a fail, it's that it's
a zero, the failed. I think everyone is agreed it's
a fail, except for the most psycho right wingers on
Twitter whatever.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
So even if you're assuming that this person who graded
the paper did not genuinely think that they deserved a zero,
you're thinking it comes from bias or ideology, and you're saying,
of course it must come from maybe maybe you should
just maybe you should give this person the benefit of
the doubt and say, maybe maybe they are a skilled

(32:50):
teaching assistant who looked at that paper, looked at this
assignments requirements was also there in the lectures when the
professor explains the assignment because tas do not make the
assignments the professor does. Uh, you forgot that basic fucking point.
The TA just grades the assignments according to what the

(33:13):
professor has given you, and the TA. Let's give them
the benefit of the doubt. Let's not treat them like animals. Here,
the TA thought on their own skilled judgment that this
paper deserves a zero. And now you're asking that person
to say, well, because of my identity, I shouldn't give
this paper a zero because I might get docksed in,

(33:34):
cyber bullied, and then and then centrists are gonna come
in and say it's you would have been more tactical
if you didn't give this a zero, because you should
have foreseen this reaction from the right like that is.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
So that isn't it doesn't deserve a zero because it's
not a zero. And I have read not hundreds, but
thousands of undergraduate papers, and.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
You have, assuming this person didn't give there, you're just
making this huge assumption that this person who graded the
paper is not a competent TA and didn't give them
the grade that they deserved. That's that's what you're saying
right now. Yes, you're saying they graded them too low.
You're saying you disagreed with the grade. You're saying you
disagree with the grade. Of course, claiming bad faith, You're

(34:21):
claiming bad faith on the side of the person who
graded it. Yes, well, that's I think that's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
Having marked, having marked, like I said, don't leave this
part out, having marked thousands of undergraduate essays of similar quality,
and having read the essay and read the market grubric ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
Why don't you just assume for a second that the
TA is competent and was grading to the best of
their ability and wanted to give that student a grade
that reflected the quality of the work. Well, I don't
just make that assumption for one second and see where
it takes you.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Because Eric I already told you five points are award
for clarity of writing in no universe. Is this is
zero for clarity of writing according to the rubric?

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (35:07):
And then the reasons, the reasons are given for why
this is a zero and they aren't They aren't required
in the sheets. In the sheets requirement that says, this
is what we want you to do.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
Yeah, cirical evidence, and that's not mentioned in the instructions
at all.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
And I'm not coming out of my ass with this.
This is again my profession.

Speaker 3 (35:27):
In part, I would assume that clarity is like kind
of contingent on you know, doing what the simon asks for.
So like if you if you asked me for an
essay on again, let's say Homer's Odyssey, and then I
submitted a poem about cars, you would give me grades

(35:49):
for that because there's clarity, because I used the English
language and I had proper syntax, and I spelled things
right and you could understand what I said. Therefore, I
deserve grades for my little poem that I wrote to you,
even though it was not about the Iliad or the
Odyssey or I keep like that.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
I keep making a point, and the.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Clarity is contingent upon you fulfilling the other things in
the assignment.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Which I already explained.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
We're done.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
So I say that she did something, and you say, well,
this is like if someone wrote a cookbook about the Iliad. No,
it's not. She was responding to an article, did she respond?

Speaker 3 (36:25):
Well?

Speaker 1 (36:26):
No, So it should be a fail. Is it a zero? No,
because there was still a response, and this might be
the hardest marker in Oklahoma. And maybe all of her
grades are consistent. But you know, based on the limited
evidence I have, and with further evidence, I'll change my opinion.
But not one marked this. Two of them marked it,

(36:46):
and I think the second.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, the second was the professor.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
Sounds like there's no evidence that could possibly materialize that
would think make you think this paper does not deserve
That's not true at all.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
Literally, you're saying, you're like like Pills says something and
you you you regurgitate it back to him the opposite
of what he said.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
No, I'm just presenting an extreme case because you would
just give.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Based you literally would change based on where evidence. No,
I actually would if she was given if she gave
like fifty percent zeros, if she was giving half her
class zeros, then I'd be like, oh, okay, well this
is the hardest marker in Oklahoma.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
Or or if if we saw the syllabus, and on
the syllabus there was like more general instructions about like
how if you do this, like something that makes sense
that says assignments submitted in this way, we'll be getting
a zero, right, like additional instructions that we didn't see. Yeah,
of course I would change my mind and be like, Okay,
well that's different.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
The paper in a psychology class that contains the line
God made male and female and made us differently from
each other on purpose and for a purpose. Oh, that's
clearly written. That was a very clear sentence I just read,
and and definitely fitting for a psychology class. God is

(38:01):
very intentional and what he makes with what he makes,
and I believe trying to change that would only do
more harm.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
That is fitting in a psychology class. When the psychology
asks class asks you to quote apply the study or
results to your own experience, or quote a discussion of
why you feel the topic is important and worthy of
study or not. She is explaining why she doesn't think
this topic is worthy of study, which was one of
the options for the Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
She says, gender roles and tendencies should not be considered stereotypes. Right,
Women naturally want to do womanly things because God created us.
So she's responding to the claim in the article that's
like kind of against stereotypes, obviously doing it very poorly.
And poorly argued, but it's still doing the thing.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
I don't see that happening.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
It literally is.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
Why got I'm seeing statements about God's intentions in creation?
What does that have to do with the article's Oh,
the direct experience of God's intentions, that's a new one.
That's a new one. Everybody has that, right.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
Well, Spinoza does, yeh.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
Martin Luther had that, Calvin had that.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
I wanted to still just talk about like because we
are I know conservatives say this, but it's a little
bit true that there is such a thing as like
educational ideology, what makes something good, what makes something bad?
And you can see this in the in the tas
or the one's the instructor, right is that the problem?

Speaker 2 (39:36):
The last one is the instructor who concurs. But I
think think the bulk of the common is like the TA.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
So they both respond and offensive. Like I said, offensive
is one of the reasons given. The conservatives are glomming
onto this to say this is the reason that it
got a zero, when there's actually a couple of reasons
given empirical evidence. Offensive not engaging with not engaging. Okay,
so the second, the second instructor maybe the prof or

(40:04):
a different TA said quote. In an academic course such
as this, you are being asked to support your ideas
with empirical evidence and higher level reasoning. And I just
I focused on this term higher level reasoning because I've
heard it a lot, we probably even used it us.
But what the fuck does that even mean? Like higher
higher level reasoning is part of this ideological slogan that

(40:27):
says you can't you especially can't use your personal experience
of God. Empirical evidence is expressly not what's asked for
in the assignment instructions. It's called a reaction paper, but
they say the reasons for giving it as zero. This
is what I'm I kind of honed in on. Is
what they asked for is a thoughtful reaction, not this

(40:48):
kind of reaction. So this is an unthoughtful reaction or
critical thinking. But these don't have any meaning. These don't
have any meaning where you can point to and say
we're holding everyone to this universal standard. It almost enables
like us as grads and these grads to say, you know,
I don't like it, so I'm going to call it
uncritical thinking and then give it a zero.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yeah, that's why.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
So you can point if you study education, you encounter
something like Plume's taxonomy, where it does categorize lower level
and higher level cognitive functions. So higher level thinking would
be analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Lower level thinking would be

(41:32):
knowledge and comprehension, so demonstrating recall of the facts, demonstrating
that you understand by say, definitions, offering definitions and summaries.
Those would be lower level thinking. Higher level thinking categorizing
by based on evaluation, synthesizing information and presenting it from

(41:53):
different sources, analyzing, breaking things down, comparing, contrasting, differentiating higher
level and lower level thinking, critical thinking and less critical thinking.
That's one way of thinking about it. And so when they.

Speaker 5 (42:06):
Sure that's way of thinking about it, how do you
know it wasn't delivered as part of the lecture when
the teacher explained this in one of the lectures, because
clearly we've all been in classes and we all know
that when you're given an assignment, it's not just secretly
slipped onto.

Speaker 3 (42:26):
Moodle or blackboard. It is explained by the teacher in lecture,
and they deliver oral instructions as well, which I note
again that we do not have because all we have
to base our opinion on is what has come to
us through X, through social media, through the accounts that
are trying to boost this as a culture war issue.

(42:49):
So our opinion is actually going to be biased by
that information that's been made available. I'm saying, and I
now am using what is called higher order thinking to
think about this. Right. Clearly, the professor designed this assignment.
Clearly they were oral instructions delivered that we are not

(43:09):
privy to right now, and we're making massive assumptions by
just assuming that they do not exist and that this
student has done everything right according to these written instructions
that were no and said that posted on social media.
That's the assumption. That's the assumption you're speaking with.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
You're also you're a you're you are also the.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
Assumptions you're making.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
All I'm saying is she didn't do everything wrong. That's
what you were saying. And I didn't say she did
everything right. Literally no one has said that. I'm only
saying she didn't do everything.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
When you say she doesn't deserve a zero for this,
you're assuming that there's no further instructions.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
That were just I want to pick up on your
point about about oral instructions. You're assuming that there were
detailed oral instructions. You have no evidence for that. And
another thing, I'm.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
Not making that assumption. Just explain how I'm not making that.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Another thing. Another thing I'm saying, I would say, just.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
So you can't just accuse me of making the reverses.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
You're the one who's saying. You're the one who's saying like,
of course professors always gave oral instructions, and like, don't
we don't have what those were, so like those things
might have said true. No, I was actually about to
disagree with you. I think it is I would say,
pedagogically irresponsible to have extra things that aren't in the
written instructions that were said in class. So for example,

(44:25):
like if I'm designing, I've designed two courses, well one
of them I designed, the other one I taught, and
I've tiered dozens of tutorial sections. And I'm telling you
right now that for me to like dock grades on
something that wasn't in the instructions, but then if I
meet with the student, I'm like, well, that was the
thing we talked about in tutorial. That is not fair,
That is that is unacceptable. Everything all the major criteria

(44:49):
have to be on the written instructions, okay, like to
just be like, well, that thing I mentioned the purpose
of like of the purpose of additional instructions tutorial might
be to clarify things on things on the rubric. But
I know from my own experience and the kind of
incapacity of undergrads to follow instructions properly, like the best

(45:14):
instructions explain in detail, like what we mean. And I
immediately when I saw the instructions for this, I was like,
there's there's way too much room for interpretation here, way
too much room for you know, personal reflection. I mean,
I hate those kinds of assignments. I always say when
I say respond to the article, I mean reference specific

(45:36):
points in the article, point with page.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
That when the assignment is given. That's why, because you
give written instructions, they are fundamentally incomplete. They will leave
things to interpretation. Therefore, you explain the instructions and then
the student goes, I wasn't there that day, and you go, well,
that's too bad, Like you can't just not show up
and expect to be able to pass.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
So it's okay to add additional requirements in orally that
aren't in the written instructions.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
And okay, it is okay to explain an assignment in
the lecture. It is okay to offer written instructions. Yes,
but you explain the assignment in lecture. That's always happens.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
I've dealt with you, I've dealt with great appeals. I've
dealt with great appeals and great great appeals. You need
clear instructions to be like in a great appeal of scenario,
I can't be like, oh, but it's not in the
written instructions, but I explained it to you orally before.
That is not fair. You cannot do that.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
It's like a written Contract's the what's on the that's
like the final instruction is the instructions that are on
the sheet. And we do that for a reason so
that when you go to appeal, you have something you
can specifically point to and say, look, this is where
I ask for it. But they ask for an application
of the results to the student's own experience or a

(46:59):
discussion of why you feel the topic is important and
worthy of study or not. And instead of like referring
to that, the second the second tier, the second marker
who agrees with the mark says at the last sentence,
please employ more thoughtfulness in your future assignments. That's not
a fucking rubric. You can tell them that in person. Oh,

(47:20):
be more thoughtful. That is not a fucking rubric. You
can't establish a universal standard for thought that an education
system or a classroom is based on by saying you
have to be more thoughtful to not get zero. So
that's like, that's untenable as as a standard for education
in any system. And I think you're just being contrarian

(47:41):
saying showed like this because there's no way you would
do that. I said it in class, so that now
you're being held to it.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
There is a simple solution here, the simplest solution, which
is the only, the only solution I've ever employed, which
is never ask students for their opinions or experience are
feelings Exactly the assignment calls for that, and it says exactly,
it looks like they agreed on a grade of zero
because they didn't like the opinions and experience and feelings.

(48:10):
That's why you don't ask for them. You cannot invite experience,
you cannot invite reflections. That's the literal term it uses
reflections or reas on experience and then call that unthoughtful.
That doesn't mean anything that is part of that is
part of this ideology too.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Yeah, I was triggered when I when I saw them
say I don't like they specifically say twice don't summarize. Okay,
that always pisses me up. I understand why they do that.
I've been of f taight courses where they're like, don't summarize.
But I often tell like the lead ta or the professor,
I'm like, like, this is like, if you say don't summarize,

(48:46):
you're just inviting the students to just give their opinion
and not talk about the article because you're telling them
not to summarize. Like, so you have like when you
have to be clearer and you have to say, like
when I say don't summarize, I don't mean don't talk
about the article. I mean like talk about specific points
with page references, claims in the article that that you

(49:06):
agree with or disagree with or are reacting to. I
just mean I don't want you to like basically just
submit a summary of the paper as your assignment. That's fine,
but I think it's hard to say don't summarize. It's
hard for undergrads who are stupid to figure out, Oh,
don't summarize doesn't mean just give my opinion, or.

Speaker 3 (49:24):
That could that could have been explained in a lecture.
It doesn't. It doesn't mean don't give your opinion.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
Look, even if it was, let's pretend it was. Let's
pretend they said all of this in the lecture. Do
you go you go to the dean, if you go
to the dean with a great appeal, and it says
one thing on the instructions for the assignment, the Dean's
going to aside with this student. Yeah, and you know that,
you know that, you know how this is.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
The professor says, I explained it in the lecture, and
then the ta goes yes, and I re explained it
during tutorial, and then the and then the dean goes, well,
they just said that explained it in the lecture. They
just said they explained it in the tutorial. Where were you? Oh,
I didn't show up. All the instructions should be perfectly
one hundred percent clear, and I should be allowed not

(50:10):
to show up and not to attend lectures or tutorials
and still be able to get one hundred percent on assignments.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Not okay, if their mom died that week, still be
able in theory to get one hundred percent on assignments.

Speaker 3 (50:27):
I would accept the fact of not getting one hundred percent,
but I should still be able in theory to get
one hundred percent, not show up, which some students do.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
But if their mother died that week and again, and
that was the one in the class that they missed,
was their mother dying.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
And again, I would ask why are we discussing this article?

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Like what?

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Why are we discussing this grade, this piece of grading.
Are we going to discuss one next week again? Are
we going to do this every week? No, there's a
specific reason where discussing this. So every second you sit
there and defend the fact that it's the instructions that
are bad, I'm render hmm, Wait a minute, who gives

(51:10):
a fucking crap what the instructions were like? And what
grade this student got? Why are we discussing this? Are
we discussing it because it's this It is so bad
that it is newsworthy that this student got zero because
of a poorly written assignment. That is newsworthy. That's what
you're saying The reason is that we're discussing this and

(51:30):
you're defending the fact that this is a badly designed
assignment and the zero was unjustified. But wait a minute,
why are we discussing this again? Oh, because it's a
transgender person who's getting online abuse, and every time you
defend the fact that the assignment was bad and the
zero was unwarranted, you're basically defending the fact that this

(51:51):
person's getting all of this cyber bullying given to them.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
Am I, Eric, Well, what side?

Speaker 2 (51:58):
What like?

Speaker 3 (51:59):
You say our side? But what like? Who gives a
shit about the zero? Who gives a shit about the
professor didn't design this assignment very well, even though I
guess the professor must be new at this and hasn't
been doing this for five or ten years, and this
assignment is brand new this year, and they're maybe they're
working it out or or maybe not. I don't know.

(52:21):
I don't know. All of that seems to me besides
the point that this is a culture wars thing with
a transgender person who's getting called all this shit on
social media from what I saw, and we're here discussing
whether or not the assignment deserves a zero, and the
instructions were clear, like, what the fuck.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
We're talking about? A very central part of what our like, Oh,
what our job is, right, what our job is is
deciding hermeneutically how to interpret rubrics, what rubrics are for,
how they should be applied, should they be applied subjectively?
Are we pretending to some sort of objectation.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
Just just casually occasioned by a human rights violation we've
decided to reflect on our jobs.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
It might be a human rights violation, but not the
way that you think.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
Oh the student, Yeah you're gonna say the student getting
a zero as the human rights violation.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
Yeah, well it might be in court, it's possible.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
Oh, religious freedom, So people should be able to go
through school and defend back get no bad way, it's
overturned because of religious freedom.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
It's illegal to discriminate based on religion. That's what religious
freedom means, including an educational environment.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
Get ready, get ready for Harvard. Everybody. You just need
to declare that you're religious and you're not allowed to
receive a bad grade.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
What we're saying, where do you get these arguments?

Speaker 3 (53:48):
Or this is such? This is all so stupid. This
is also this is why I didn't want to discuss.
This is why I didn't want to discuss this turn
into some some crypto right wing bullshit arguments.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
I don't decide what makes the news, Eric, I just
I podcast about it.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
We're not even podcasting about the reason this is in
the news. How often do poorly graded and poorly conceived
assignments become newsworthy? How often does that happen? What is
the real reason we're talking about this? Nobody wants to
take me up on that question.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
I think we're talking about this.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
But I'll answer it again if you want. I mean, clearly,
the conservative movement are opportunistic, and they are dying for
an example of some trans professor who they can show
some evidence, some plausible evidence, is discriminating against religious people
and to show to add to the narrative. As Pills

(54:51):
also added before, add to the narrative that the university
is just a mill for creating ideological kind of like
wokesters right, and it's like and it's like, oh wow,
here's a student who's expressing their sincerely held religious beliefs
in a Christian state, a Christian country from their perspective, right,
and look at the way that they're being discriminated against.

(55:12):
That's obviously the reason why this is becoming news.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
Well, if that's so clear to us, then what value
does it add for us to justify that happening by
saying that, indeed the grade was too low, Indeed, the
assignment was poorly conceived. Why why are we legitimizing that

(55:36):
reaction by discussing those things, by like agreeing that, oh, yes,
they shouldn't have given it a zero. Indeed, yes, yes,
the assignment instructions weren't clear after all, Yes, this person's
religious rights may have been violated. Like we're just now,
we're just legitimizing all believe.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
In that zero, in that zero sum calculus. I think
it's possible to both be like, these are conservative opportunists
who are like taking invantage of a situation, but also
I think the instructions are kind of bad. Do I
think that that means that this professor in TA deserve
to get the online like lashing and probably death threats

(56:17):
that they're getting. No, that's horrible, that's horrible.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
And again I would say, in any other context, if
you gave a student a zero and they went on
social media and complained about it and started try and
cause all of this nonsense. That student would probably get
expelled or reprimanded at the very least by their institution
for trying to do that, for trying to go outside
of proper channels to redress a grievance that they have.

(56:42):
And I'm saying, we're just forgetting about this, and that's
in this situation because it's this supercharged cultural issue. But
if we'd step back and put things in perspective, the
reason we're forgetting about that obvious fact is because of
the fact that it's a religious the essay has religious context,
and it's a transgender ta.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
I think assuming that, assuming assuming that a grade was
a bit, they.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
Gave me a bad grade and I started chirping them
online about it and starting all this shit and trying
to get it to go viral, like to redress my
grievance in the public sphere, would be like that would
probably be against university policy to do that, I bet, Like,
I bet there's a very clear policy that says students

(57:30):
can't do that if.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
There was a note. Okay, but this is the same
argument that you could make about like maybe this is
going to sound like a reach, but it reminds me
it's similar to like when Edwards known and revealed all
that stuff. It's like it's raw, Like there's clear guidelines,
he's not allowed to leak those things. And obviously he's
in a lot of trouble. But he leaked things that
I think were in the public interest. Okay, if he

(57:52):
just leaked random stuff that put people in danger right
without any like public interest, yeah, of course the hammer
would come down. But like in this case, so like
what I'm saying is like, if you risked.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
His life to reveal the information about about surveill, you're
comparing this You're.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
No, no, you're not paring this point.

Speaker 3 (58:12):
You're not compared this girl to Edward Snowden.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
You're not. You're not understanding the point of the analogy.
The point of the analogy is that if there's if
if a student like.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
Leaks, you just brought up Edward Snowed in.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
You're not understanding the point of the analogy. So I'll
just explain it differently. If the student like leaked their
grade and their paper online after they submitted a grievance
and it turned out that they were just wrong and
that they and like and they just got a zero
because they like did they submitted like two sentences and
like did nothing. Yeah, of course they would get in trouble,

(58:48):
I think, And that would make sense because like what
are you complaining about? But if you reveal something that
there is like maybe some plausible like reason, I actually
don't I don't think that a student would get in
trouble for that, like just take away the ideological like
just imagine it was just a zero for something that
was like not political, like a political okay, and they
just got a zero. But then people look at it
online and they're like, yeah, that does seem a little

(59:09):
bit unfair. Like I don't think that would become a
big news story the way that this has because it
doesn't have anything to do with the cultural war. But
I think that it would be like kind of a
whistleblowy type of thing. It would be like, you know, oh,
like like this maybe this grade is unfair with like
draw attention to something that maybe was being ignored. I'm
not sure if this this was going to be ignored,
but I think, like I guess what I'm saying is
that is what I'm saying is like the level of

(59:31):
trouble that the student would get in I think is
going to be directly tied to the to the plausibility
of their claim. I really turns out to be plausible,
They're not going.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
To get in trouble any distant level of Comparing leaking
global surveillance programs to leaking the fact that I got
a zero.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
I'll put it in a different, a different analogy for you. You're
saying that we're allowed to call strikes. Oh, we're not
allowed to call balls because it makes some someone look bad.
It makes it makes someone look bad, even if that
is incorrect. We have to be ideologically pure.

Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
Yeah, I just don't get out.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
We're just agreeing. I'm okay, I'm agreeing with the conservatives
on this case that you shouldn't use grades to enforce
ideological compliance, not punitively. Did she do that? I'm not
one hundred percent sure, but it really fucking looks like that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
If you get a zero on your paper and you
exhaust all the channels to have it redressed, then you
accept the zero. I mean, I don't know what else
to say.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Dude, You go back and forth because you're like the
the news the news media institution is not to be
trusted because it makes things out of nothing. It blows
up things that doesn't exist. But the university system this
we have to trust in every single decision it makes.
And if it makes a decision not in your favor
that you you feel offends your sense of justice, that

(01:00:52):
it asks for your opinion and then you give your
opinion and it says, no, your opinion is not thoughtful.
We have to trust the university that it's going to
do to defer everything.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Defer to the university. And it's because it's a trustworthy institution.
But the news media is not.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
I guess, Well, in this case, I know it was
the teaching assistant who gave the grade, not the university,
just as you all know because you have been teaching assistants.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
Well, you just said if you if you appeal it
and your appeal is shot down, then you should you
shouldn't do anything. You can't do anything. What if you're
what if.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
You feel like in the end, that is the that
is the case, like there shouldn't be just no end
to the appeal process. And again, looking at this student's paper,
I do genuinely believe that it looks like they don't
really deserve more than a zero.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Well, then there's where we disagree. Yeah, we should be.

Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
Talking about that that was established, That was established pretty
early that I'm fine with this student getting a zero.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
You just haven't really given any good arguments about why
dees iterve a zero, or you haven't at least responded
to to pills the specific outlines about why it doesn't
deserve as.

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
Your I was saying, I don't think it was clear.
I went through all the assignment requirements and said, I
don't think it meets any of these.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
Oh my god, that's not You don't have to say
it wasn't clear. It has to be zero percent clear.
It has to be like the same as gibberish, equivalent
to gibberish as pertains to the outcome of this.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
Is too low of a bar for clarity.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
I said, as pertains to the instructions of the assignment.
It has to be equivalent to gibberish. And same with
referencing the article. You have to you have to prove
that every reference to the article they're indirect citations. I
think one was directed us.

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
I think anyway, interpret is the paper written clearly? To
mean was this written right in English? And get five
free grades? I do not think that's the same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
But the burden of proof is to is on you
to prove that this is exactly the same as submitting
like a pancake recipe. For this assignment, you have to
prove that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
Yeah, you have to show where the grades are, every
grade above zero.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
I did. I said, this is. I said, this is
an appeal to a paper. I've read thousands, I've read
thousands of essays like this. This is. People are also
shitting on this too, like this is the worst essay
they've ever read. It really isn't. I don't know, I
don't know what undergraduates they're reading, but like state school

(01:03:29):
in Oklahoma, I'm sorry to keep shooting in Oklahoma, but
this is this is really not that that bad, probably
probably slightly below average. But again, the issue is with
the content, right, But that's why in the rubric, if
you don't want to separate content from form, then don't.
But they did, and the form is not a zero

(01:03:50):
unless again, this is the hardest marker ever, and then
you're agreeing with this either because you you truly disagree
with me or because you're the hardest marker. That that
could be true. Yeah, then like if this is zero percent,
then what's the average of this course? There's no Yah.
Well that's the thing this is if this is average,
then no one is passing this course.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
Yeah, and I think I think if we were presented
with evidence that actually many people like it doesn't even
have to be fifty percent. But if there was like
twenty percent of the class was getting zeros, I'd be
given this a second look. I'd be like, oh, okay, Like,
let's see these other papers that are getting zeros, Like
maybe maybe this is fair. Imagine an equally like gibberish paper,
an equally like opinion based paper, except the person, instead

(01:04:33):
of arguing about God, was arguing about their lived experience,
as like a trans person, but weren't talking about the article.
We're just saying, like how it makes them feel good,
it's like important to them. But it didn't. It didn't
do like any substantive like discussing of the article. Well,
that should be a zero two by this standard.

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
This is not average level quality of work. This is
very well below. This is well below the standard I
would expect to see at this level.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
Again, a zero is saying not a single, not a
single sentence clause has been made in these two pages
that advances towards these stipulated goals of the assignment. Even
one out of twenty five, not even not even on
one front of the rubrick that's divided into three parts.
Not a single thing in this was more valuable than

(01:05:23):
not handing in anything.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
I'm trying to think, when did When have you givens?
Like can you remember? Like I feel like I've given
so few zeros that I can remember, like a lot
of them.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
Like zeros are for not handing in or cheating.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Yeah, exactly, or or I think I think I have
given zeros on like in person written exam answers.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
Or if it's out of five, maybe yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
If it's out of five. But also like don't you
think that if in an in person written exam, like
during the exam period sometimes like a specific answer that
a student gives just has nothing to do like at all,
and they're just like bullshitting. I think maybe even then
I'd probably give like a one. I'd probably give it
like a one out of five if it was like
out of five.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
That's what I'm saying, Like the bar goes up to
prove that in two pages or six hundred and fifty
words or whatever, it is, the bar goes up to
prove that in that space nothing has been said. If
it questions out of one, like zero is a very
likely possibility, zero's like a fifty percent possibility. If it's
out of one, when it's out of twenty five, that
means that that means either it's signaling punitive a punitive measure,

(01:06:32):
which is in the case of cheating, or it's signaling
that this is completely not towards any end stipulated in
the outline for the assignment. And I think I have
proven that there's at least one point in each breakdown
of the rub brick. That's why I did that, Eric,
And then you just said, well, well, this is this
is like submitting a cookbook about the Iliad. No, it's not.

(01:06:54):
It's like it's relevant. She did try to fulfill the
stipulations of the excitement. She was asked also to include
her personal experience that was given as an option. It
was the personal experience that wasn't considered thoughtful enough. That's
a completely arbitrary standard. And you can't really have like
you can't declare something universal thought if you're gonna have

(01:07:18):
have standards that can be that arbitrary, especially in a classroom,
especially when these grades actually matter.

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
Okay, if you really want to discuss your grading, your
thoughts on how to grade a paper, let's choose a
different one. Okay, let's choose a different Let's choose a
different paper. Let's choose one that didn't get a zero.
Let's choose one with a more fulsome assignment, and then

(01:07:44):
we can all go to town on that. Why don't
we do that next week? Why don't we do that
next week? Because that's what you want to pull me
into a conversation about whether or not a paper deserves
to have zero.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
Fine, all are all undergraduate essays in the country. They're
all equivalent at this point in time. The fact that
everyone's talking about one doesn't make any difference. That doesn't
add any value to this particular essay. It's differentiated from
every other essay that's been written in the country.

Speaker 3 (01:08:13):
Because you know, that's not why they're talking about this.
They're not talking about this because it was a travesty
of grading. That's not why this is being talked about.
If you really want to have a discussion about your
grading philosophy, then let's choose a different paper. Let's choose.
Let's let's come back next.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
Week's wrong with this?

Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
We can really dig in? Oh, well, because this one
is a little bit strange, isn't it. Hmm. It's a
little bit weird that we're happening to be talking about
this one. I don't want to get pulled into a
conversation about my grading philosophy. All I'm saying. All I'm saying,
this is why I didn't even want to talk about this.
But here we are, an hour and a half into

(01:08:54):
this fucking recording talking about this goddamn fucking paper. Still
all I want to say is, m I got a zero. Hmm. Okay, fine,
Oh you guys don't think it got a zero. It
should have got a zero, should have got higher. Okay, fine, Wow,
that's interesting fucking podcasting. Why are we talking about this?
Why are we talking about this?

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
Then?

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Now you want to shift the goal post to the
ontoh I don't want to the ontake value of podcasting.
Why do we talk about anything? What we talk about
doesn't matter anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
No, I don't want the goal posts to be set
up in the first place. When the goal post is
to talk about why whether or not you think this
paper deserves a zero. That's a stupid topic. And you know,
damn well, why we're talking about this paper and it
really has very little to do. We already talked fact
that it got a zero.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
We're talking about we're talking about how why do we
keeps and standards in the education system.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
We keep circling back to our grading philosophiesis if that's what.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Why do you think weird? It's weird?

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
Why are we doing that? What is it? What's the relevance?

Speaker 3 (01:09:59):
It's it is irrelevant. It isn't either here nor there,
because this is a culture war topic that we're talking about.
Not are objective philosophies about grading papers. That's not what
we're talking about. I mean, it's weird that we're kind
of pretending that it is now just to berate, meet
and get and act as if I'm wrong about everything

(01:10:21):
I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Well, I was genuinely curious, like when do you give
zeros eric, because I just like I have a hard
time believing that because like for me, it is so
it's so rare to give a zero, like it really
has to be, and I just like, yeah, I just
like to unless you're a way harder greater than I
thought that you are.

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
It is rare I give the odd zero, especially when
a paper does nothing that the assignment asks for. Then
I will not give consolation grades like, oh, at least
it was clear. No, like if you didn't do the
main parts, I'm not going to give consolation grades for clarity.
If you're clear, but you're completely off topic, then I

(01:10:59):
will still give a zero because, as I said earlier,
I don't think is this paper written clearly five points?
I think that is contingent upon you fulfilling the other requirements.
I think that is in addition, it's not like if
the paper says like you're going to be graded on
spelling and grammar, like I think, yeah, in addition to

(01:11:21):
fulfilling the main requirements of the paper, that's that would
be my philosophy. Right, So if you make even if
you address the topic very poorly. But I looked at
this essay. I looked at the essay that that this
person submitted, and it was terrible. And the paper that
I looked up, I don't know. We seem to all

(01:11:43):
think it was about a different psychology paper that I posted,
the one that I typed into. What did I type
into I typed into chat GBT or Google AI or something,
and I said, which were the papers at least students
are supposed to ripawn respond to? Well, I don't know.
I didn't see it. And it came up with a

(01:12:04):
couple options. It said students were given an option between
two papers, and this student appears to respond it to
this one. I looked at it, and it looks like
the student's response has nothing to do with the paper whatsoever.
And that's why I said, Okay, I'm fine with it
getting a zero. I'm not gonna I'm not really comfortable
giving consolation grades for clarity when they have fulfilled none

(01:12:26):
of the other requirements for the topic. Boom, that's that
would be my grading philosophy answer to this, And that's
what's so interesting. Wow, that would be my article.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Simple.

Speaker 3 (01:12:38):
That's simple, And that has nothing to do with why
I get up on what I'm annoyed about all this.

Speaker 1 (01:12:44):
The article is on the assignment sheet, and I summarize
that at the beginning. Did you see the funniest The
best sentence in this in this essay was here. It
is quote society pushing the lie that there are multiple
genders and everyone should be whatever they want to is
demonic and severely harms American youth, and.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
The t A the TA mentioned that line specifically as
being especially offensive.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
Wait did you hear that though, pushing the lie that
there are multiple genders? Yeah, there is only one gender,
Christian is the only gender.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
And again and if you're using the word demonic in
a un ironically using the term demonic in an undergrad paper, yeah, zero.

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
Zero Like no, well, then you're saying there's no point
in rubrics like society.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
Pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone
should be whatever they want to be is demonic. That
that huge noun phrase is demonic and severely harms American youth. Terrible, terrible,
worthy of zero.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
Don't ask for their opinion and if you don't want
to hear it, but you can't mark them based on
something you asked for.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
Yeah, exactly. Uh. You know one consolation prize about this
Eric that is like, we've done our reading for next week,
which is great, So yeah, I guess.

Speaker 3 (01:14:12):
So, I guess so, But at what cost to my
mental health? That's what I'm always wondering.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
This is gonna I think people are gonna love this
this episode.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
Eric, you're gonna be a lifelong educator, you have to
like make a case for the universal principles of what
education is for. You know, you can't just you can't
just be arbitrary with it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
And I and I would hope that the institution that
I work for, or if I work for the institution,
I would hope that I have the balls to stick
up for my employees and not put them on administrative
leave whenever there's a fucking outrage on social media about them,
Like this university should be goddamn ashamed of itself for
doing that. A person they've hired and now they I mean,

(01:14:56):
oh my.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
God, the university is in Oklahoma. They already are ashamed
of themselves.

Speaker 3 (01:15:02):
This person is probably part of a they're probably part
of a union, or maybe not. This is an American university,
so they're probably not part of a union. They probably
have no support, and they're now they're on administrative leave,
might lose their fucking job. Are gonna get What is
it like to be jobless now in this day and age?
Pretty shit? Probably being a trans person in Oklahoma, I

(01:15:25):
have no idea what that's like. Probably not great based
on the based on the caliber of student I'm seeing
hyper religious.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
I entirely agree with you, but that's that's not relevant
in my experience as a as a part of the
university institution.

Speaker 3 (01:15:44):
Though that that's what I see as the most salient
parts of all of this. I did not see having
a discussion about grading philosophies to be. And then I think,
what's the matter even if we all agree or disagree,
even if we can come to a consensus that we
all agree or disagree that this paper did or did

(01:16:04):
not deserve a zero. Okay, let's say we did reach
a consensus. Let's say we all agree the paper doesn't
deserve a zero. So fucking what, Like everything else about
this is twisted and disgusting. And that and the fact
that the student semanth that fact that Samantha received a
zero when she shouldn't have. I mean, at least she's

(01:16:26):
still got God, right, God's still on her side.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
No, she's she's gonna get a job on Fox News too.

Speaker 3 (01:16:31):
Take that to the bank. Oh yeah, are you the
Oh are you the girl? Who are you the girl
who got that trans person to commit suicide? Gone? So
because of your social media rant? Yeah, that's me. Oh,
come join, come join our cult. Great, great for you,
fucking Samantha. Really, I hope you fucking live a long

(01:16:51):
and happy life.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Eric. They're all salient points, but like they're not relevant
to the thing that we are experts in the thing
that we're discussing. So if you want to just move
the discussion to we should stop right wing, cancel culture. Okay,
somebody made a mistake, all right, let's not cancel. Get
them fired from their job for making a mistake some
acknowledgment of that. Then that's a completely different discussion.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
And I think I would agree. I would, I would
absolutely agree, And I would hope that she that this
person has a union and that they're protected, and I think, like, yeah,
I mean, I would never I mean yeah, I mean,
I really hope that they have a union sticking up
for them, because, you know, even though I think that
the grade was unfair, it's a mistake, and I think,
you know, you can learn from a mistake. You can
just be like, okay, like, I'll be more careful in

(01:17:39):
grading and try not to let like my own disagreement.

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
They didn't say if she's on paid leave, because if
you're on paid leave, that'd be a welcome vacation. If
these are your students.

Speaker 3 (01:17:51):
It annoys me that I I could give a student
a zero and not have to be afraid of this
kind of thing happening. That's the part that I don't
like about, you know, giving advice to say, well, you
should grade more carefully. It's like, well, I don't have

(01:18:11):
to do that, though, because as a heterosexual male, I
also don't have to worry about this kind of public reaction.
I don't have to worry about the possibility of a
student outing me on social media. And even if the
student did out me on social media, yeah, it wouldn't
get this reaction because my particular identity does not feed

(01:18:34):
into some kind of some kind of right wing rage
machine like someone else's would. Right, So that's like, there's
a fundamental injustice to this whole situation, which is all
I was really trying to highlight the whole time, and
the thing that was basically making me angry about this

(01:18:56):
whole discussion, And every time we veered into talking about
the grades and whether or not the grade was appropriate,
I'm like, yes, but there is an injustice here that
we're just glossing over. And in a way, legitimizing the
injustice by trying to discuss that aspect of it, which
seemed to me the most the least relevant part of

(01:19:19):
all of this is whether or not that grade was justified.
That's just the pretense of all of this. That is
the pretense for the reaction. It is not the heart
of the issue. The issue is hatred of trans people,
is what we're pretending. We're not talking about that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:39):
I've done. I didn't see it that way. I saw
it more.

Speaker 3 (01:19:43):
We're well, then justifying with this conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
I saw it as like we're basically this is our
this is our profession more or less, and we're justifying
the way it's done. And that sometimes means saying this
is an example of it, of how it's not the
way it's done. If we double down and say no,
this is absolutely justified, then every preconditioned narrative of conservative

(01:20:08):
Christians about how universities ideologically poke promote only woke agendas,
they allow no internal dissent. That would be true.

Speaker 3 (01:20:18):
Yes, a casual discussion that was happened to be provoked
by a gross example of transphobia on the internet.

Speaker 2 (01:20:27):
Okay, yeah, it would be interesting how different this conversation
would be if the student had gotten like thirty percent,
let's say they got eight, and conservative media was trying
to be outright conversation this conversational, if we were talking
about it, we would just be making fun of conservatives
trying to say that this paper is like, deserve more.
It would be a totally different discussion. And so in

(01:20:47):
that sense, the grade, the discussion of the grade matters,
because if the grade was higher, we would be having
a totally different discussion. We'd be like, oh, this is hilarious.
Look at these conservatives trying to say that this is good.
Like we'd probably be going through the paper and laughing
and being like, there's nothing in here that says that
this should get like more than thirty percent.

Speaker 3 (01:21:05):
Well, that that's kind of the isn't that kind of
the point? Like the difference between a zero and a thirty,
Like zero, I'm talking at zero percent and thirty percent
is not that much. It is zero.

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
Especially if this is like worth more than ten percent,
that's all. That's three that's.

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
We're not even talking about it.

Speaker 3 (01:21:25):
It's three percent of your entire grade. That's like I'm
not talking about half of it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
I'm not talking about it. From that perspective, I'm talking
about like how hard it is to like to get
a zero. It's just it sends out like. That's the
other thing, Like I think a zero sends a message
like like it risks sending a punitive message. It's like
fuck you. It's like it's harsh. And I think it's
really hard to get a zero. I think it's I
think you have to work hard in a way. Well yeah,
or doing zero work at all.

Speaker 1 (01:21:51):
A zero is like leaving a one penny tip instead
of a zero tip.

Speaker 2 (01:21:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:21:56):
Well, well, okay, if this assignment was with ten of
this student's overall grade in the course, that a zero
is a big chunk of that gone. If they got
a thirty, that would mean they lost seven grades out
of pot they're only that means they're capped at ninety

(01:22:17):
seven instead of one hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:22:19):
I'm arguing on principle, not on outcome.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
Yeah, exactly, You're That's the thing. It's weird that you're
talking about outcome, Like I'm talking about the principle of
like what our job is supposed to be.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
Like, what is a grade?

Speaker 3 (01:22:29):
I think I've been taking the principal position in this
discussion for most of it, I don't know about it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
We haven't thought this much since the Jack Jijack said
Big trans episode.

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
And that and that time it was it was Pills
was on the woke side.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
Yeah, when it was Jijack, I was on the woke side.

Speaker 3 (01:22:45):
We've been locating our principles very differently. I think in
this discussion I was taking the more social injustice of
it all, and I kept hammering that home, whereas you
guys were talking about the gray zero being a travesty.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
Well obviously, Yeah, Victor, you've been on the anti wok
side now two times in a row.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
I've been anti woke, Like that's that's been my my
I don't know. I mean, look, I I just I
just feel, like Eric, like I respect your you know,
your concern like I actually share, I share a lot
of your concern. I just I just think that we
ought to resist. Like it's it's just like you seem

(01:23:29):
so zero some to me, and in the sense that
it's like, well, if this is gonna help the conservative
outrage machine, I don't even want to give an inch.
It's like fuck them. It's like but but like that,
but then like I just think that you end up
losing sight of like what might be true. It's like
like like if like if if literally you're just like, well,
no matter what, I'm not going to give an inch
on principle. But it's like it doesn't like what's true

(01:23:51):
or like what makes sense matter. I just feel like
like like once, once you've decided that there's like a
social injustice here in a way that you that we
actually all agree with, because that.

Speaker 3 (01:24:04):
Is the context of this discussion. I don't know what
how much more objective I can get about that. That
is the context of this discussion. Is the fact that
a transperson gave a low grade to an extreme religious
student in a psych class. That is the context of this.
It is not about grades in abstraction from the situation

(01:24:29):
that this whole thing occurred in. It is not about
you want to look at it. You want to look
at the grades in abstract in abstraction from the right
wing reaction underwriting this whole event. But that but that
implies how is that ignoring the truth? I don't understand
how that is ignoring the truth? That is the truth.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
That's that's like a strange way of framing it. Like
to me, it doesn't matter what identity of the person is.
I'm just looking at the instructions and the essay, and
it's like sir saying that, like, because the person's trends,
they're allowed to give more of an unfair grade, Like
I know you're not saying that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:04):
I know you're not you're saying because they're trends. Then
this blew up because it confirms exactly what the conservative
imagination has been.

Speaker 3 (01:25:11):
And then pretend that that's not that's truth, but this
as a coincidence to talk about our grading philosophies, which
I think is just really like dishonest. Way to treat
this whole situation is to ignore the social context of it,
like that's the truth. The truth is the context in

(01:25:32):
which it occurred in and the pretense that it represents
to abuse trans people some more on the internet. That's
the whole truth of this situation. How comes the.

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):
Specifics matter because the specifics, the specifics allow the specifics
are the thing that give plausibility to the outrage.

Speaker 3 (01:25:50):
Those are the specifics. Well, the outrage is not because trans.
Hatred of trans is not you know, would hatred of
Jews be justified if it turned out that they were
all bankers running the planet, like like would no, it
wouldn't justify it wouldn't justify anti Semitism. Nothing would justify anti.

Speaker 4 (01:26:11):
But if a Jewish professor justify transphobia either, is there
a stereotype against trans people that somehow makes it so
they're they're incapable of objective?

Speaker 2 (01:26:23):
Well that's crazy, but I mean I I've been hearing this,
have you, transgrader, They're brutal.

Speaker 3 (01:26:31):
The greatest thing.

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):
It's funny you mentioned the Jewish thing because I could
imagine an analogous case where like you have a Jewish
professor who gives a student a zero because they they
just argued free Palestine the whole time in the paper,
and then it's like, well, I mean it's.

Speaker 3 (01:26:44):
I would look at that student's assignment and be like,
you're making a really Christian argument that might offend your
TA based on their identity. Maybe you shouldn't submit that
to your TA. Like if my TA was something and
I was was Jewish.

Speaker 2 (01:27:00):
And then the paper was about like arguing was like, well,
my religion says that you know that that the Palestinians
are being you know that whatever genocide. But the assignment
was like, you know, asking for something a bit different.

Speaker 3 (01:27:13):
It was like female, and I was saying like, yeah,
I agree that men should be the dominant ones in
that relationship and should run the household. To be like, well,
that's just my belief. The fact that my Ta is
a woman, shouldn't are a feminist or whatever, shouldn't affect
the grading of my argument. I believe Aristotle when he
says that women are are based on emotion and that

(01:27:38):
my children, I my sperm just goes into the womb
and then turns into a child, and the woman plays
a very passive role at all of that. That's just
my belief. Okay, Like my Ta shouldn't have graded based
on her gender identity, Like that's good, Yeah, I like
there are some practical considerations to take on when you're

(01:28:00):
undergrad trying to get as high grades as possible.

Speaker 1 (01:28:03):
Don't take the analogy too far like you did with
the last one. But this is it's a It can
be the same analogously to an issue of academic freedom. Like,
for one example, our friend Michael Millerman, the the supervisory
committee tried to quit to not let him be able

(01:28:25):
to graduate and do his PhD because he was writing
on Dougan. It's kind of it's like the same. The
same issue is like, are you allowed to make a
good argument, a rigorous argument for bad things? Now she
made a bad argument for bad phrase, So the analogy
doesn't really hold. But you should be able to separate

(01:28:47):
yourself in order to evaluate the like form versus content
according to the rubric. That's kind of what we've been repeating.
And also I found this tricky. I found the other
instructor the professor's comments much more what do you want
to say ideological too, And we didn't get to read
that because we were reading the other ones. But yeah,

(01:29:11):
she basically or I don't know if it's a she.
The other the professor basically says, you're endorsing bullying and
you're criticizing your peers, and their opinions are just as
valuable as yours, so you're being punished. It's it's much
more clear in the other in the other comment, and
then she says sorry. The other person says, please employ

(01:29:32):
employ more thoughtfulness in your future assignments, and that was
really grating to me.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
Yeah, and the other the other TIA said something about
like have more empathy. Uh, I employ you to apply
some more perspectives and empathy in your work if you
personally disagree with findings, and by all means share your Christmas,
but make sure you do so in a way that
is appropriate and using methodology and empirical psychology.

Speaker 1 (01:29:55):
And that's true. You should use methodology and empirical psychology
in and aside where that's required.

Speaker 2 (01:30:01):
But it was, that's in the instructions.

Speaker 1 (01:30:03):
Okay, we're gonna, we're going back.

Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
We gotta we gotta cut we gotta cut this off.
We got we've been going for way longer. I mean,
we were just going to talk about this for like
ten minutes at the beginning, and uh then talk about
something else. But I'm not mad at it, because uh,
I think that was that was a spirited, spirited debate.
And now we don't have to do reading for next week.

Speaker 1 (01:30:22):
It's it's content.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
Eric looks so dejected over there. If if this is
a video podcast, then you'll see how dejected Eric looks.
If not, I'm just telling you right now, he looks Eric.

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
Eric made his point.

Speaker 2 (01:30:35):
Well, I'll be curious to hear what I'll be curious
to hear what some of the patrons and what some
of the people think I don't know if this is
going to be a public episode or a patron episode, but.

Speaker 1 (01:30:42):
Uh, it's public because we did a homework episode last
week and now I guess next next week will be home.

Speaker 2 (01:30:48):
That makes sense. This makes sense as a public episode.

Speaker 1 (01:30:50):
You know what I think it. I think it's this
we we gave them a point.

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):
Yeah, that's that's exactly it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
That's exactly they gave them a layup. We did an
own goal on.

Speaker 2 (01:31:00):
That's the thing that I think Eric like in a
way he's seeing like I understand why Eric is coming
at it from this perspective where he's like, why are
we focusing on the fact that they're using this as
a point, like, fuck these people? And then whereas me
and I think maybe pills to also similarly, we're just like,
but they did give them a point, and that's fucking
They shouldn't have They shouldn't have given them a point.

Speaker 3 (01:31:23):
I'm glad to hear it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:26):
It's a lesson, like if you're you know I used
to see Sorry, no, go ahead, I'm just saying Eric,
I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:31:34):
Eric just wants to read books. He's not like Twitter
need not exist for Eric.

Speaker 2 (01:31:39):
We forced him. We force him to do these episodes.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
Eric doing these episodes makes people come listen to to
bachtin Uh episodes. Anyway, what were you saying, Victor, I
was a boy with a beautiful soul.

Speaker 2 (01:31:54):
Okay, Uh, I don't know. I think I forgot what
I was gonna say. It doesn't matter, It wasn't important.

Speaker 1 (01:31:59):
Say you were teaing this course once?

Speaker 2 (01:32:01):
Oh yeah, so okay, so I was teaing this course
a long time ago at Ryerson now called TMUO the
university changed the name. But anyway, it was like a
philosophy of law class and it was mostly focused on
Supreme court cases in Canada, a lot of the hot
button ones like euthanasia, like abortion. Actually I don't know
if because there wasn't really a big Supreme court case.

(01:32:23):
I guess there was Morganhllar, but I don't remember if
we talked about that one. But also prostitution, and that
was a context where I would crade a lot of
essays and I would get sometimes I would get essays
that were similar to this right because it would be
some religious person being like, well, God doesn't allow women
to behave in this way with prostitution, therefore, whatever Now,
the difference with that course I was kind of thinking

(01:32:44):
about it is there were very clear instructions about like
if you want to have that perspective this is you
can draw on philosophy called like, for example, there's moral
philosophy perspectives called sanctity of life right, and you could
argue for it properly, and you could say, well, like
in this case or like you know, you could argue
on these different grounds. So there's like many more clear

(01:33:04):
but even there I couldn't give zeros unless it was
like total bullshit. But it just I was just reminded
of that because like that was the instance in my
life when I was teeing court papers where I would
have been most likely to get papers like this, and
I did have like religious nuts basically saying like, oh,
like women can't like are gonna be slots if they

(01:33:25):
do prostitution, and like you know, God will punish them,
and I'd have to be like, well, like I remember
having to be careful because it's like, you know, these
people are expressing their sincerely held beliefs, so like I
couldn't like the key to me is like I have
to just point to how they're not doing what the
assignment asked for and never saying like, well that's offensive,

(01:33:46):
that's whatever. I would just be like, well, you're just
not doing what the assignment said. And I think that,
like it's our pedagogical responsibility to write instructions in such
a way that we have lots of ammunition to be like, well,
you're just not doing what the assignment said, and don't
resort to like that's offensive, even though sometimes it is.

Speaker 1 (01:34:03):
Yeah, both both greaters resorted to that's offensive, which I
found surprising. That's that's like, you don't do that because
it can.

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
Go to appeal exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:34:14):
But offensive doesn't mean anything in terms of like submitting anything.
Anyone could find anything offensive in principle, So anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:34:23):
Exactly, it doesn't doesn't help the student do better next time,
I don't think.

Speaker 2 (01:34:30):
I think.

Speaker 1 (01:34:30):
I think that's why this is what feedback should do.
I think that's why the prof's response, like, please employ
more thoughtfulness in your future assignments. I find that so
grading for that reason. So it's so diminutive, it doesn't help. Well,
what the sentence is saying is you have to think
what I think, and that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:34:52):
Yeah, basically that's what it comes across.

Speaker 3 (01:34:55):
That's basically what That's what the internet said to uh
Bentham's bulldog for his for his essays for his blogs,
to please employ more thought next time you talk about
continental philosophy. Yeah, which, okay, I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
It's not fair.

Speaker 2 (01:35:13):
All right, let's wrap this up. We're at We're at
an hour and forty one minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:35:17):
Oh great. This will be a joy to edit. Anyway.
If you want to learn about Levinas or Bocteen, please
join us in our Patreon because that's what we do.
That's where we do homework.

Speaker 2 (01:35:28):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:35:28):
Today was going to be the other, but the philosophy
of the other, but we didn't get to it. We
got to do other things. Yeah all right, cheerio boys,
Bye bye.

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