Toledo Blade, UT Law School Admits Large-Scale Grade Error for Ethics Class:

University of Toledo College of Law students have filed a complaint with the American Bar Association after they were informed of a grading mistake that made some students believe they had failed a class they actually passed.

Approximately 80 percent of the students in the fall 2023 legal ethics class received the wrong grade, students were told in an email from the interim dean about four weeks after grades were initially posted.

The error and a long delay in correcting it, as well as the lack of transparency on what happened, have upset the students who feel the university has failed to be candid with students, some of whom had already started retaking the class.

In a Jan. 31 letter to students, Rebecca Zietlow, the law college’s interim dean, described what happened for the students who were taught and graded by professor Llewellyn Gibbons.

“Professor Gibbons has discovered a large-scale error in the entered grades for the course, likely arising due to a record keeping/data entry problem,” Ms. Zietlow wrote. “Incorrect scores on the exam were mistakenly associated with Exam IDs, resulting in initially assigned grades that did not reflect the exam performance of many students. This affects more than 80% of the class.” … Unfortunately, the laptop computer on which the grades were initially recorded was lost, which has made it necessary to reconstruct exam scores based on awarded points, which were recorded by Prof. Gibbons on each exam as he graded those exams. …

The letter came four weeks too late for Avery Viers, currently in the first semester of his third year of law school.

“I initially had a grade of C-,” Mr. Viers said. “This is a required course at the law school, so a C- means I would have to retake the class and I would not get the credits. … It wasn't until the fourth week of classes that we were finally told in an email that there had been a mistake in the grades, and they were fixed,” he said. “I had actually earned an A- in the class. …

Mr. Viers said he saw irony in students in a law ethics class not being told immediately about the issue with their grades.

“Believe me, it has not been lost on any of us,” Mr. Viers said. “If they would have told us something was wrong three weeks, even two weeks prior, it probably would have been OK. They took four weeks to tell us there was a problem.” …

Law students Kristin Volk and Collin Garcia filed a complaint against the UT law school Wednesday with the American Bar Association alleging the grading issue’s concealment.

“We, along with several other students at the College of Law, feel the College of Law has been unethical in their concealment of a grading issue that impacted the efforts of the fall 2023 Legal Ethics course,” the complaint read. …

Ms. Zietlow released a statement Friday afternoon. 

Professor Llewellyn Gibbons discovered an error in the grades recorded for his Fall 2023 course Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility, which affected 47 of 55 students. The College of Law leadership addressed the situation as soon as it was brought to our attention. We have met with students from the class, all exams have been reviewed for proper grading, and students have access to review their own exam and grade through our Registrar’s Office. We regret the error and appreciate our students for working with us on a resolution.