With Pass/Fail Now the Norm, Outlier Law Schools Face Student Backlash

Arizona State University law dean Douglas Sylvester is well aware that he’s not the most popular guy on his (virtual) campus at the moment.

The school’s Student Bar Association on Monday issued an open letter denouncing the school’s handling of spring semester grading, saying students feel “betrayed” by the announced policy, which requires them to go through a formal accommodation process to request that their grades be reported as pass/fail. Students may choose to go that route immediately, or they may make that request after grades have been issued if their spring semester grade point average is lower than their cumulative GPA. Students have vented their frustrations on legal blogs and online forums such as Reddit, calling the scheme “heartless” and a “prisoner’s dilemma.”

Sylvester is among a number of law deans and university administrators receiving backlash from students who are unhappy over the grading policies their schools have rolled out amid the coronavirus pandemic. The University of Georgia School of Law, the University of Michigan Law School, the University of Chicago Law School, and Georgia State University College of Law also have seen pushback over grading, as have numerous other schools. Though students harbor an array of opinions over what grading system is best, the most vocal and organized among them are pushing for mandatory pass/fail grading.

Mandatory pass/fail grading has emerged as the most widely adopted system among law schools, in response to the coronavirus pandemic and quick shift to fully online classes. At least 75 law schools have announced moves to mandatory pass/fail grades for the semester, including all but three of the so-called T-14 schools. (Chicago is keeping its traditional grading system, and both Michigan and Georgetown University Law Center are allowing student the option of going pass/fail after they see their spring grades.)

In explaining the adoption of pass/fail grading, law school deans have characterized it as the most fair and humane approach given the mounting stresses students are feeling, the uneven impact of the virus on students, and the difficulty in ensuring security of exams taken online. Not everyone agrees, of course.

Some professors have argued that pass/fail grading robs students of the ability to show academic improvement; eliminates the ability of schools to identify students who are struggling and require more academic support; and fails to give them an opportunity to demonstrate the resilience they need to be good lawyers.

With so many law schools coalescing around mandatory pass/fail grading, many students at campuses that either choose to keep traditional grading or made pass/fail grades optional believe they are being treated unfairly, and they are making that known to decision-makers at their schools.

Students at Harvard Law School, for example, successfully lobbied the school to revise its optional pass/fail system to a mandatory one after making the case that students felt pressure not to pursue pass/fail grades for fear that they would be viewed as less diligent than peers who stuck with regular grading. A vocal contingent of students at Arizona State are hoping for a similar reversal.

“Student fear and stress has not been mitigated under this new grading policy,” reads the letter from the ASU Student Bar Association. “Instead, student anxiety has worsened. To create a new system that so egregiously disregards student opinions and elevates the stress of the student body during this exceedingly difficult time is patently unfair.”

Sylvester said in an interview Monday that the Phoenix school is sticking with the announced grading policy, which was designed to give students a choice in how they wanted to be graded, while offering them extra protection on the job market. In a nutshell, the school wanted to avoid students having to “choose” to go pass/fail this semester, which employers may potentially frown upon. By requiring students to seek a university-approved accommodation allowing them to be graded pass/fail, employers can’t inquire about the reasoning for those grades without running afoul of federal law, Sylvester said. The process to request those accommodations takes mere seconds and will be approved right away. The law school will not be investigating student’s stated reason for seeking the accommodation, and gives them the option not to state any reason at all, he said.

“Right now—certainly because other law schools have gone pass/fail—it has fueled a national movement for every law school to do this,” Sylvester said. “I understand it. I don’t think our system is perfect. I also don’t think mandatory pass/fail is perfect. We think for our community, this was the best answer.”

Sylvester said he also had emails from several hundred law students who are grateful to still have the chance to earn letter grades, even if they have been less public about that preference than the mandatory pass/fail camp.

“For many, what they are really looking for is the opportunity to continue to focus on the things that are important to them—a certain level of normalcy,” he said. “For some people, that’s law school. For others, it’s their family. For those students who really want to focus on school, we didn’t want to take that option away.”

The situation is slightly different at Georgia’s two public law schools, where students have joined together to protest the University System of Georgia’s prohibition on converting courses to pass/fail. More than 500 law students at the University of Georgia and Georgia State signed a petition asking the system to allow their schools to move to pass/fail grading, citing the many peer law schools that have already made the switch.

Georgia law dean Peter “Bo” Rutledge told students in an email Tuesday that law school will relax its grading curve for the semester but retain letter grades.

“As we informed our students earlier today, the school of law will be using letter grades, but the faculty has made adjustments to its curve,” Rutledge said in a prepared statement. “Like all law schools, our overriding focus is on the individual needs of our students, whether through tapping our already established emergency fund; maintaining a strong level of support for summer government, judicial and public interest work; continuing our support of stipends to take bar preparation courses for students who need it or just ensuring they know our “virtual” door is always open to them around the clock.”

That is unlikely to appease students who were hoping for a pass/fail option, however.

“These grades will be more a reflection of privilege rather than merit this semester,” said third-year Georgia law student Alanna Pierce. “There are students who are now homeschooling kids, students out of work and worried about where the next paycheck will come from, and students who may get sick or will end up caring for sick loved ones. Privileged students have the time, money, and space to step away from all that and study.”