US: Professors fight for their right to fail students

Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge has set off a debate about grade inflation, due process and a professor's right to set standards in her own course after they removed a lecturer from teaching, mid-semester, and raised the grades of students in the class, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed.

Dominique G Homberger won't apologise for setting high expectations for her students.
The biology professor gives brief quizzes at the beginning of every class, to assure attendance and to make sure students are doing the reading. On her tests she doesn't use a curve, as she believes that students must achieve mastery of the subject matter, not just achieve more mastery than the worst students in the course. For multiple choice questions, she gives 10 possible answers, not the expected four, as she doesn't want students to get very far with guessing.

To Homberger and her supporters, the university's action has violated principles of academic freedom and weakened the faculty.
Full story on the Inside Higher Ed website