The University of Washington (UW) is encouraging professors to give special treatment for black students in grading their finals because they are “too busy fighting for their rights to sit down and study.”
“Give Black students a break!” reads the petition. “We are already DISPROPORTIONATELY impacted by this pandemic in terms of health care access and financial hardship. Now add state-sanctioned violence, how do you expect us to enter finals in this headspace?!”
“We are busy fighting for our rights and for the rights of future black children and students to sit down and study,” it continued. “The least UW could do is demand professors to accommodate us during this time.”
Answering the students’ demand, four of UW’s top officials, led by President Ana Mari Cauce, asked instructors to be “especially responsive” to the needs of students, particularly those from the black community, and provide them with accommodations such as extra time to finish assignments or a “final examination optional” approach.
Similarly, students at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) are calling for new grading policies for their final exams, claiming that recent unrest has made them unable to focus on their schoolwork.
“I personally have been exhausting so much energy simply using my platform, researching, donating, having hard conversations, empathizing, and grieving to even focus on my classes and have to catch up as we speak because the past week has been excruciating,” she said.
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