January 12, 2024
Former HBCU Professor Allegedly Ousted After Complaining About Raising Pupils’ Grades
Economics educator Kendrick Morales told Fox & Friends that he was prepared to fail 44% of his class until the HBCU’s administration “definitely applied some pressure on me..."
A former professor at Spelman College in Atlanta claimed he was fired from his position last summer after he refused to succumb to the pressures to raise students’ grades above his standards.
Economics educator Kendrick Morales told Fox & Friends that he was prepared to fail 44% of his class until the HBCU’s administration “definitely applied some pressure on me to raise grades above what I thought was reasonable.” He pointed to an “incentive problem” as a catalyst for his sudden firing. If students complained about the difficulty of the class, the administration ultimately caved in. So, Spelman bumped up the grades even more without his knowledge. As a result, Morales complained and was discharged without any warning or chance to appeal.
“I thought I was responsible for setting academic standards and making sure that the grades and degrees the school was conferring actually held its value,” Morales said.
“I brought your issue to Faculty Council, and some of them experienced what you did,” Lisa B. Hibbard, the then president of Spelman’s Faculty Council, wrote in an April email to Morales, Inside Higher Ed previously reported. “They all agreed that grades are at the discretion of the instructor only, no one else.”
According to his academic records, Morales recognized that upperclassmen, including seniors enrolled in a thesis class, did not meet the requirements to pass his class. The numbers were still significant even after his own “substantial scaling up of their scores,” according to the education news platform.
Since Morales’ departure, the tenure-track faculty member contemplated whether he’d return to academia. He told Fox & Friends that he was weighing his options, having connected with the Academic Freedom Alliance, a non-profit organization whose members are dedicated to protecting the rights of faculty members at colleges and universities.
“I thought, in terms of going for an academic position, that I would be able to have autonomy and not have administrators kind of meddle with grades and meddle with the incentive structure that I was trying to put in place,” Morales said. “I’m not really sure if it’s viable for me to continue as an academic.”
After reviewing the matter, Spelman College submitted a statement to Fox News Digital.
“At the heart of the Spelman College experience is the academically rigorous program we offer our students. Meaningful and effective classroom engagement is the hallmark of a Spelman education. The College, its administrators, and faculty exercise appropriate judgment in the delivery of our learning activities in order to maintain consistency across Spelman’s campus,” the institution told Fox News.