There's a pretty interesting grading scandal coming out of Utah's Brigham Young University Law School.
According to an email a tipster sent to Above The Law, second- and third-year students received their grades over Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend only to have the school recall them because professors had trouble using a grading curve to inflate grades.
In an email, the dean of students explained that school policy allows teachers to use a grading curve to inflate grades, but not all the teachers understood the system.
From the email:
We need to recall the grades so that all faculty teaching a class where the median GPA of the students enrolled was higher than 3.4 will have an opportunity to grade the class with a higher median if they so choose. Once faculty are given this opportunity, it may result in some grades being increased. We do not foresee any grade being decreased. Because only some grades are likely to change, there may be changes in class rank. Thus, until we notify you that all grades have been appropriately calculated under our Policies and Procedures, we ask that you not rely on the grades or class rank you received on Friday. We will work diligently to insure this is done quickly.
ATL's Elie Mystal was pretty upset about the policy and called the school out for trying to inflate already good grades just to improve the university's reputation.
BYU Law Dean Jim Rasband was quick to call Mystal's characterization of the policy as grade inflation as "almost entirely incorrect."
We reached out to BYU for a better explanation of the policy but did not immediately get a response.