Article: Professor Fails an Entire Class -- But University Says No

Texas A&M professor Irwin Horwitz
(Image by Click2Houston) Details DMCA

fessor at Texas A&M Galveston has failed an entire class, even though the class was not yet at the end of the semester. The management professor, Irwin Horowitz, sent an email to his entire class, informing them that he was flunking all of them.

Click2Houston reports that in the email:

...he called them a disgrace to the school. He said he will no longer be teaching the course and will be giving everyone in the class a failing grade.

"Enough was enough,"

After what he calls a semester of disrespect, backstabbing, lying, and cheating, Horwitz had all he could take.

"Yesterday I reached the breaking point," he said.

Gawker, in an article titled, Psycho Professor Stone Cold Failed the Whole Class, asks:

Is professor Irwin Horwitz a hero for the cause of Teaching These Coddled Youth of Today About Responsibility and Adulthood, or just another crazy old motherf*cker? You be the judge. A sample of Horwitz's email to his class, via Inside Higher Ed::
"Since teaching this course, I have caught and seen cheating, been told to 'chill out,' 'get out of my space,' 'go back and teach,' [been] called a 'f*cking moron' to my face, [had] one student cheat by signing in for another, one student not showing up but claiming they did, listened to many hurtful and untrue rumors about myself and others, been caught between fights between students". None of you, in my opinion, given the behavior in this class, deserve to pass, or graduate to become an Aggie, as you do not in any way embody the honor that the university holds graduates should have within their personal character. It is thus for these reasons why I am officially walking away from this course. I am frankly and completely disgusted. You all lack the honor and maturity to live up to the standards that Texas A&M holds, and the competence and/or desire to do the quality work necessary to pass the course just on a grade level". I will no longer be teaching the course, and all are being awarded a failing grade."

Gawker also reports that Hurwitz said that 'a few' students had not engaged in misbehavior," but he failed them as well, anyway.

But the university is not backing Horwitz up. Students who finish the course, taught by another instructor, will be judged by their performance in the whole class for the whole semester.

There's no report on whether this petty tyrant of a professor will still have a job the following term.

The original article at Click2Houston has over 500 comments. Some suggest that tough love like this is what young disrespectful children need.

One writes, "DO NOT PANIC. They'll be right at home at your typical leftwingwacko administration. Who cares they're bad at management?"

Another says, "This is Texas, after all. It's entirely plausible that the whole class was a bunch of moronic losers. Look at who they elect." To which another comment cites examples of Democratic legislators.

In the TV interview, one student said that he had not had problems in the class and had done well on his first test. It seems like professor Horowitz punished everyone for the actions of just some. in war, that's a war crime. In Texas, that may be normal-- part of the patriarchal way of seeing punishment as the solution-- after all, Texas also executes the most people. In my book, professor Horwitz, in the spirit of everything being big in Texas, is a very big a**hole.