‘I Was Fired for Setting Academic Standards’

Grade inflation is now widespread at American universities. (Illustration by Alex Merto for The Free Press)
Sure, you could study hard to get a degree. But at Spelman, where I taught, you could also get a top administrator to change your grades.
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When I accepted a tenure-track position in the economics department of Spelman College in the spring of 2021, handing out bogus grades was the last thing on my mind. Spelman, after all, has a great reputation. Based in Atlanta, it’s a women-only historically black college, one of the oldest in the country; for the past 15 years, it’s been rated the numb…
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