In class recently we were talking about what a fair classroom would look like; how could we best accommodate students’ needs while still maintaining fairness to everyone in the course? The topic triggered an unpleasant memory in my mind of a situation where a professor of mine tried to maintain “fairness” for all students.
This situation happened in Fall 2020, during our first fully virtual school semester. That semester was my most difficult semester to date, and not necessarily because of my course load. That semester I had a very close family member pass away and I was physically and mentally unwell. I’ve never been able to pin down what exactly was going on with me but I had extremely low energy and would sleep most of the days. I later found out I had type 2 diabetes and very low vitamin D levels, which I believe to be contributing factors but honestly, I can’t say what it was for sure. The thing that sucks about being this type of unwell is that no one cares. It’s very hard to get accommodation from professors without feeling like you’re oversharing about yourself and just hoping they have sympathy for you. When you get “real symptoms” or end up in a hospital/urgent care, you can just send your doctors note to the professor and they let you take the time that you need. When you’re just… tired? You get told to manage your time better, go to bed earlier, etc. Poor mental health? You get a week or so to mourn then you better get your act together.
I contacted one of my professors letting him know that I was in a hard situation and I couldn’t afford to fail the course. I was in danger of being removed from my major because I had already repeated the course before. I was failing every class and doing damage control at that point, so I asked if he would let me make up assignments working at an accelerated rate (2 assignments a week instead of 1) until I was caught up for the final exam. His first response was to get my advisors contact info so he could make sure I was actually in danger of being removed. Then he asked for proof of death in my family… After seeing I was actually in a tough situation (during the pandemic!!) he agreed to our makeup schedule.
I worked tirelessly that semester to make up the assignments. I did every single assignment until the final project. The project was a considerable portion of our final grade and it was the hardest assignment we received. While the rest of the class had about a month to focus on it, I had under 2 weeks. I was not able to finish in 2 weeks so I asked the professor if I could get one extra day. His response was something I don’t think I’ll ever forget. He sent back one sentence:
“At that point, I don’t think it’d be fair to the other students.”
Because the project had a strict deadline, I ended up getting a zero on it and failing the course. Even after all the work I put in in a semester where I had very little energy (during the pandemic!!! jerk!). So many things ran through my head when I read that email. How is it unfair to the other students? Was it fair that I lost my grandmother and still had to be productive? Was it fair that I only had 2 weeks to do the project when everyone else had a month? I would have been disappointed but less upset if he had just said “my hands are tied” and ended it at that. It was him using this concept of fairness when everything felt unfair towards ME that stung. And if any other student needed accommodation too, they could have just asked for it. But clearly they didn’t and I did. Wow. Honestly I was speechless.
Unruly Bodies 
Your experience angers me because I have experienced similar things and it is so frustrating to not get the accommodations you need. Whats worse is that these sentiments on “being fair” are often espoused by the same people who don’t believe in providing larger social accommodations like national healthcare out of “fairness”, and when you say that the lack of access to these resources are hurting disadvantaged people they respond with “life isn’t fair.” Which is it? Is life not fair so we shouldn’t help people or is helping people not fair to those who had to “work for it?” If life isn’t fair, surely it shouldn’t hurt to make it a little more unfair by providing some people with a little more help? The response to experiencing problems is always “life isn’t fair,” but when you ask for help because of those problems it becomes “well that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else.” This to me seems like a paradox or a contradiction of some sort, but the whole idea of fairness is wack. Maybe we should just aim to help people, maybe the concept of fairness shouldn’t even come into play! maybe we should all just do what we can to make life a little better for those around us. I am so sorry that your professor had that response, it is super frustrating and just wholly unnecessary for him to deal with your situation in that way.
I think its funny how everyone always says ask for help or reach out, but when you do something like this happens. I have a friend going through similar things this semester. His grandmother died, and she was his mother for most of his life. It’s the only time I have seen him cry. He’s a macho man than has a lot of pride and seeing him like that broke my heart. I spent a lot of time with him this semester and I try to encourage him to do his work and be productive but he has lost a lot. Because of this he stopped attending some of his classes and had to drop a few. And because of that his visa status is in jeopardy and he may not be able to graduate. His advisor is working tooth and nail with him and his professors to work something out and some of them are understanding and others not so much because this happened at the beginning of the semester so I guess he is supposed to have it together by now. I have also seen this same thing happen with friends. This is why people don’t ask for help because when they do, no one listens. There is no handbook on grief or how to handle stress or depression or anxiety. How can someone else let you down so much when you did ask for help. And the worst part is, something like that may be on your transcript but the reasoning behind why that grade is there won’t be present. There should definitely be more accommodations in the sense that professors are required to give you leeway in situations like that. That professor was more concerned about equality than equity. Just because you give everyone the same relative time frame to do something, doesn’t mean that everyone has the same resources to have it completed. t this point I am ranting because I am sad this happened to you, but I do hope things are better now and this semester is going well for you. Sorry this happened to you.
I like what you said about your professor using the concept of fairness to justify a choice that was ultimately his. I think if your professor really broke down why he didn’t think you should be given an extra day to work on your project, it would come down to him having the opinion that turning in an assignment past the due date is wrong or results from a lack of work ethic, both things that are clearly untrue in your case. But since this would require (probably) a pretty significant cognitive restructuring for your professor, instead it just came down to “it isn’t fair”. I think this shows just how important it is to break down the foundations of even concepts that we might consider very simple, such as fairness.