Don’t Think! (Silicon Valley Edition)

January 16th, 2005

California professor flunks Kuwaiti’s pro-U.S. essay

A 17-year-old Kuwaiti student whose uncles were kidnapped and tortured by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invaders more than a decade ago said his California college political science professor failed him for praising the United States in a final-exam essay last month. Ahmad Al-Qloushi, a foreign student at Foothill College near San Jose, Calif., said he was told by professor Joseph A. Woolcock to get psychological treatment because of the pro-American views expressed in his essay.”Apparently, if you are an Arab Muslim who loves America, you must be deranged,” said Mr. Al-Qloushi, who feared the failing grade could cost him his student visa. “I didn’t want to be deported for having written a pro-American essay, so as soon as I left his office, I made an appointment with the school psychologist,” he said. Mr. Woolcock did not respond to telephone and e-mail inquiries. College officials declined to comment, saying it is a confidential matter because Mr. Al-Qloushi and Mr. Woolcock have filed complaints.

Paul @ Wizbang has found a link to the actual essay. On presentation alone, the paper would have earned a failing grade. Poor sentence structure and grammatical errors in a college-level academic paper are unacceptable.

However, if Woolcock did verbally attack Al-Qloushi and suggested that he needed psychiatric help for his view on America, he ought to be sanctioned.


Filed under Education | Comments (2)

2 Responses to “Don’t Think! (Silicon Valley Edition)”

  1. Jay on January 16, 2005 January 16, 2005 - 9:53 pm

    That is one reason I hesitate to post on D.C. Thornton, I’m afraid I will get graded! I trust you D.C., if you would fail him he deserved it. However I’m sure you would keep personal opinions out of grading assignments. Aside from that, I’m hoping D.C. will move north and take over the school discrict in this county! (Humboldt)

  2. Ed Senior on January 25, 2005 January 25, 2005 - 11:40 am

    Just in case you’re interested, I helped grade Foothill student essays some years back (different class, of course). The essays were chock full of errors of all kinds, and showed little understanding of the subject. Foothill is NOT Stanford or Harvard. Mr. Al-Qloushi’s essay would have been technically better than 80% of the essays I saw. And that’s before considering the fact that he was (presumably) writing in a “second” language.

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