NYU Professor Says He Was Fired for His Class Being “Too Hard.”

The definition of organic chemistry by the American Chemical Society is that it is “the study of the structure, properties, composition, reactions, and preparation of carbon-containing compounds.”

I don’t know about you, but the definition alone makes me want to bang my head off a wall. And this is one of the many reasons why I never pursued any of the sciences in college. ONE because I knew it wasn’t my thing and I’d suck at it, and TWO I assumed a class like that would be hard because IT’S ORGANIC CHEMISTRY [*cries in humanities degree*].

But we are past the days of embracing our strengths and coming to terms with our weaknesses to pick a major. Oh no, now we get professors fired if we flunk their class.

4 New York reported that Dr. Maitland Jones Jr. was fired from NYU earlier this year after “students complained to the school that his organic chemistry class was too hard.”

No doy.

The school is disputing this, and says, “there were multiple student complaints about his dismissiveness, unresponsiveness, condescension and lack of transparency about grading.”

Maybe he was condescending because their questions were dumb…? But I digress.

The school also sited low course evaluations and said that Dr. Jones stopped grading work once he learned he would be let go. #BossMoves

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some crappy professors. And if Dr. Jones truly sucked at teaching, he should be let go. But I don’t think that is the case here. Organic chemistry is often used as the first way to weed students out of pre-med—it’s not supposed to be a cakewalk. And Dr. Jones isn’t just some rando. To give you some background on him, he wrote a leading textbook on organic chemistry and taught at Princeton for years.

So, me thinks the problem lies with the students.

Dr. Jones noted he saw a major decline academic performance in recent years, something that was made worse post-COVID.

“In the last two years, they fell off a cliff…We now see single digit scores and even zeros,” he said.

Huh…shutting down schools has had adverse effects on students…who would have thunk it?

Dr. Jones also said students were not coming to class, weren’t watching the course videos he recorded and that they couldn’t answer course questions.

Comically, The New York Times mused that maybe this new generation of students needs to be coddled—I mean taught—differently.

“In short, this one unhappy chemistry class could be a case study of the pressures on higher education as it tries to handle its Gen-Z student body,” the article considers. “Should universities ease pressure on students, many of whom are still coping with the pandemic’s effects on their mental health and schooling?”

In other words, “Should colleges consider lowering standards so the wittle students don’t get their feelings hurt?”

If this class alone kept students from their dreams of medical school, I’m not entirely sure I want them operating on me, anyway. Maybe the students are better suited for a degree in Mythological Gender Studies? Just a thought.