At the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, College Republican President Jacob Deaville filed a formal complaint against his professor for discriminatory intent and unfair grading practices all because of his politics. The professor, who Deaville wished to remain unnamed since he was informed of his resignation from UNLV on Friday, taught a summer course called "Summer Cuisine," which he took to fulfill an international cultures requirement for graduation.
While the class was completely apolitical, the instructor singled out Deaville, a rising senior, for his conservative politics after he sent the teacher an email with his College Republican signature embedded at the end. In an interview with Red Alert Politics, Deaville said that he didn’t think much of it when he sent the email before the first day of class with his signature.
"The first thing he did [in class] was come out and make a joke about Donald Trump, and he made it about three or four times until I acknowledged him, and then he continued," Deaville recalled, saying the joke was bizarre. "It had to do with the President’s comments in Israel, saying ’I just got back from the Middle East.’ But he was still in Israel. He made a joke at that. He stared at me until I acknowledged what he was saying."
Even though the joke itself wasn’t enough to accuse the professor for discrimination, all grades made by the professor that required his discretion became gigantic red flags. When it came to multiple choice quizzes, he got over 90 percent correct on all of them.
"I really didn’t think much of it," Deaville continued. "But at the end of the first week, I had a negative-17 in participation."
He explained that he’s never gotten and has never met anyone who had a negative number in participation before because that particular metric is graded on a scale from 0 to 25.
Deaville told Red Alert that he spoke to the professor a number of times to get clarification from the professor on why his grades were being affected. He even recalled an unflattering exchange the professor had with a colleague in front of him during class about his politics, suggesting that the colleague would "never hold" a student’s politics against them.
"I truly believe he had compromised judgement because of his reserved feelings for the president," Deaville said. "He was kind of taking it out on me."
The professor even changed the deadline on an assignment when he knew Deaville was in transit from the CRNC convention in Washington, DC, and reduced his grade as a result.
Deaville said he had enough and filed a formal complaint. The department chair announced on Friday that the professor had resigned and they would be conducting an audit on his grades. Now, he expects his grade to be an A as a result, instead of a B+.
"It doesn’t seem like that big of an issue to go from a B to an A," Deaville said, but agreed that it’s pretty messed up to go from an A to a B for political reasons.
Deaville went on to say that with the professor’s resignation, he does not expect to pursue further legal action.
This incident is just the latest at UNLV after a professor called President Trump a "syphilitic Nazi in the white man’s house." He later apologized for his remarks.