Texas A&M Galveston professor Irwin Horwitz would like to fail his entire class -- close to three dozen students in total -- but the school is blocking him from doing so.
Horwitz announced in emails last week to university administrators at the Galveston campus and to his strategic management class that he would no longer teach the course and would fail the entire class because "None of you ... deserve to pass, or graduate to become an Aggie," according to Inside Higher Ed.
The professor said the class was being so disruptive that he couldn't last teaching the course for the rest of the semester, and now a department head will take over.
Horwitz told KPRC the class was so bad he needed security guards in the room.
"Since teaching this course, I have caught and seen cheating, been told to 'chill out,' 'get out of my space,' 'go back and teach,' [been] called a 'fucking moron' to my face, [had] one student cheat by signing in for another, one student not showing up but claiming they did, listened to many hurtful and untrue rumors about myself and others, been caught between fights between students," Horwitz wrote in an email to students, published by Inside Higher Ed.
Texas A&M Vice President of Academic Affairs Patrick Louchouarn told KPRC none of the students have failed the class though, because the "only reason a student would fail because he or she has not performed the expectations for that particular class." The university will, however, investigate Horwitz' allegations about student misbehavior.
"I have nothing left," Horwitz told the Houston Chronicle, blaming the school for not enforcing the university's honor code against his allegedly unruly students. "I put my neck on the line for what I thought was the right thing to do."