I posted last week about a professor at my university who is just an absolute asshole to a friend of mine who is in the same class. That post was mainly rant, but a few people commented and suggested I get video of this professor as evidence to turn into the administration at the school.

A little background in case nobody wants to go back and read my long rant post (it’s in the rant group titled “people can be such jerks” if you do). My friend was a foster kid growing up and had a traumatic early childhood. He has very bad scarring on his lower jaw and right cheek and is profoundly deaf on his right side, all due to abuse. He wears a hearing aid in that ear and has a bad lisp due to the scarring around his mouth.

He’s shy and quiet and doesn’t want to cause problems for anybody. He’s very smart and a top notch student. He wants to become a bioengineer and is on a full academic scholarship and with the way his grades have been going between spring and then this summer semester will probably make the dean’s list at the end of the year.

Now the problem here is this one professor has decided that he hates my friend(whose name is Max) with a passion. No idea why. If Max has a question on the lesson material or homework, this asshole will literally berate him for not magically knowing the answer on his own. But if he writes the questions down and I ask them, the teacher answers them like a normal person would. So Max is the only one in the class who gets torn a new one for asking questions.

On multiple occasions this professor has mocked Max’s speech impediment in front of the entire class. And when Max needs something repeated, because he does have a hearing disability, the professor will walk over to him, lean into his face, and speak very loudly and overly slowly before asking, “Was that clear enough for you?”

Max has complained a couple of times to administration about this professor and nothing has been done about it. Even worse he knows about the complaints and it made things even worse.

Well after suggestions of getting video evidence, myself and two other students in the class came up with a plan to get just that. We had Max ask questions about the homework and also ask the professor to repeat a few things for him. So we now have 2 videos from this one 2 hour class lecture of this professor doing everything from calling him stupid for asking questions to getting in his face for needing a few things repeated because he couldn’t hear it. I sit next to Max and was able to get an audio of it recorded for extra measure.

The problem now is Max doesn’t want us to do anything with it. He’s worried that this could make him seem like a problem student and jeopardize his scholarship. He would never be able to afford to go to this university without it. He also has severe anxiety about any kind of confrontation and in the past this teacher has been made aware of Max’s complaints about him. We only have a few weeks left before finals in august. But, because this professor teachers multiple levels of biology classes and Max is here for a BS in biochemistry obviously he has a lot of biology related classes to take before he graduates and moves on to work on his masters degree. So it’s highly likely he will have to deal with this professor again and after this year we won’t have classes together because my classes will branch off to focus on nursing. So if he gets him again, he might not have friends in the class who will have his back like he does right now.

I don’t know what to do. Max doesn’t want to risk his scholarship, but this professor needs to have some kind of consequence. Every student in the class is disgusted by the behavior and other people have filed complaints about him. Now we have 2 separate videos from two different people and an audio recording from me. If we ever had a chance to do something about this guy it’s now. But I don’t know how Max would feel about us going over his head after he’s said not to do anything about it.

I don’t know if this could actually cause problems for him with his scholarship or not. He’s afraid it can and if he loses it, he’s literally lost his one chance. We’ve been friends since high school and I hate seeing him treated this way, it’s beyond wrong. He was bullied enough in high school and now it’s happening again at our university 8 hours away from our home town. At least back then he had a good foster family that did what they could to put an end to it. But now he’s out on his own and his previous foster family has new kids to take care of. I don’t think he’s heard from them since last semester.

What should we do? Should we turn in the videos and audio anyway or should we do what Max says and just put up with it until the summer semester ends?

I keep having flashbacks to junior year of high school when he was first placed in his last foster family and he was bullied really badly. Max does not stand up for himself. He just sits and takes it with his head down and hopes it goes away on its own(it never has). This is the first time it’s ever been a teacher doing it to him so I think he feels even more like he should just roll over and let it happen.

I’m at a total loss of what to do. I hate seeing him treated this way. He’s the nicest person I know and everyone that has classes with him loves him too, except this one professor. 99.9% of the time I leave that class fuming angry because of how he treats Max during the lectures. I’m sick of it. But again, I don’t know if turning in this evidence could potentially hurt Max’s scholarship.

If you have any advice, personal experience, or even an opinion please share. I’ll take all the advice and perspectives I can get right now.

*update*

Thanks so much for all of the great and quick advice! I’m going to let Max know he’s safe scholarship wise and try to get him to go with us to put in the complaint. Maybe with it coming from 4 people instead of just one and having video we can get some results!

I don’t know how long it will be before we see results but I promise I will post again to let everyone know what happens. Hopefully this asshole gets the karma he deserves!