April 17th, 2008 Dear Dean Gomez-Velez, Thank you for meeting with us on April 10th. We write to file a formal complaint based on the performance of our o ur First Year Year Lawyering Seminar instructor, instructor, Associate Professor Angela Burton. This complaint can be divided into the the following topic areas: grading, communication, consistency, consistency, professionalism, and Prof. Burton’s history of unsatisfactory performance as a CUNY Law instructor. instructor. We have listed below our most important grievances, categorized by topic area. Given her hostility expressed towards certain students students in class, we do not feel comfortable personally discussing these issues issues with Prof. Burton. We file this complaint pursuant to the 2007-2008 edition ed ition of the CUNY Law Student Handbook and we believe that the issues addressed in this complaint are not protected by academic freedom. This complaint reflects Prof. Burton’s neglect of duty and incompetent service, both of which are listed in the Handbook as sufficient grounds for student complaints. Unfortunately, Unfortunately, our experience ex perience with Prof. Burton has severely inhibited our abilities to engage with CUNY Law’s Law’s ultra-important Lawyering curriculum. Given the history of student troubles with Prof. Burton, this has become an institutional problem which must be promptly and adequately addressed by the Administration. Administration. Current and future students at CUNY Law deserve no less. Again, thank you for meeting with us and we look forward to updates of the Administration’s Administration’s follow-up on this issue. Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter,
Concerned Students of First Year Year Lawyering Seminar H Cc: Concerned Students of Lawyering Seminar B, who had Prof. Burton as an instructor last semester and met with Dean Gomez-Velez Gomez-Velez regarding similar problems with Prof. Burton Cc: Concerned Students of Prof. Burton’s Spring 2007 LFR class, who circulated a petition and met with Dean Anderson and former Academic Dean Edwards regarding Prof. Burton’s inadequate performance Cc: Dean Anderson
Below are the specific areas of concern: I. GRADING a. Prof. Burton’ Burton’ss grading grading has been been arbitrary arbitrary and not reflect reflective ive of student student performance. This statement is based on her grading of our draft pretrial briefs on extraordinary circumstances, submitted on March 3rd, 2008 (the only grade we’ve received thus far). Her evaluation of these briefs was vague, sometimes 1
contradictory, contradictory, and inconsistent with her stated stated expectations. Even students who were given relatively high grades were puzzled by her apparent oversight of significant flaws in their analyses and structures. For example, Prof. Burton set a strict 12-page limit for the briefs, despite student protest and other Law yering instructors’ willingness to extend the page limit limit on the assignment. Some students who received high grades on the brief significantly exceeded the page limit while many of the students that struggled to meet the page limit received lower grades, apparently because of missing missing content and analysis. Obviously, Obviously, it is unfair that those students were penalized for lack of content in part because they stayed within the page limit, while the students who did not meet the page limit were able to include more analysis analysis and were thus given higher grades. grades. This leaves students uncertain as to whether Prof. Burton will stick to her stated expectations in future evaluations. b. Prof. Prof. Burto Burton n engages engages in in favorit favoritism ism (or dis-favoritism) in class and many students fear that this may also be reflected in her grading. For example, students have noticed a relationship between grades on our draft briefs and the amount of clarifying questions asked in in class. That is, the students who ask Prof. Burton Burton to clarify statements or assignments in class (often triggering her hostility) seemed to receive lower grades than the students that rarely speak in class or those that ask no clarification questions. Many in the latter group have expressed a lack of desire to engage in class for fear of “saying the wrong thing” or falling into disfavor with Prof. Burton, Burton, which could translate to her grading. This is a stark contrast to our seminar last semester when there was much more student engagement by a larger portion portion of students. This chilling effect effect in the classroom classroom has severely limited our abilities to openly engage with the Lawyering curriculum. c. Prof. Burton Burton’’s seminar seminar section section in Fall 2007 (Seminar (Seminar B) B) received received grades that were were noticeably lower than any other seminar section that semester--only one student received an A- and the rest of the grades were lower. lower. Students from that section have complained about unfair grading from Prof. Burton and report that she announced at the beginning of the semester that she would not give grades above a B+ because first year law students do not produce "A" work. d. With With 75% of our our grades still still to to be determined, determined, we want want to ensure ensure that they they reflect reflect our true performances and are not arbitrarily assigned. II. II. COMM COMMUN UNIC ICA ATION TION a. Prof. Burton Burton refused refused to give give us her written written feedback feedback on our ungraded ungraded draft draft rule statements and rule explanations for the first brief, with no explanation as to why. Prof. Burton continues to request that we submit a dditional work to her, usually by email after class has ended instead of during class. class. However, she has not 2
returned any of this written work with comments or feedbac k for us to improve our writing and analysis. analysis. This work includes the above-mentioned above-mentioned draft rule statements and rule explanations, four case briefs, a fact summary for the draft brief, a log of cases relevant to the equitable estoppel portion of our brief, a sample argument for the equitable estoppel portion of o ur revised brief, an outline of our revised brief, and our revised briefs submitted on April 16th. We question questio n why she continually requests that we submit these items to her but refuses to give us her written feedback on them. This is inconsistent with the Lawyering curriculum’s curriculum’s focus on guided instruction and inconsistent with how other Lawyering professors are engaging their classes. b. Many students students find find her methods methods of communi communication cation,, particularl particularly y when requesti requesting ng clarity on an issue, to be patronizing and inappropriate for students at our level. c. On more than than one occasion occasion,, Prof. Prof. Burton Burton has rolled rolled her her eyes eyes as students students ask ask questions; other times she appears distracted and inattentive, looking at the clock when students ask her questions. d. On April 4th, Prof. Burton announced via TWEN that we must turn in “Case Grids (worth 5% of final course grade - see syllabus)”, without ever explaining in class this assignment or giving much explanation on the TWEN site. site. It seems that she she wishes us to submit case grids based on cases we studied over 1 ½ months ago, but she did not indicate at the time we were studying the cases ca ses that they would need to be gridded. In fact, many of us understood that 5% portion of our grade to have already been completed when we presented cases to the class. The course syllabus says nothing about turning in case grids with our final revised drafts on May 1st. III. CONSISTENC CONSISTENCY Y a. Prof. Burton Burton has departed departed from from the the Lawyering Lawyering course course curricu curriculum lum on more more than than one occasion, without explanation. For example, the course syllabus stated that during class on April 7th and 10th, we would work on preparing for our oral arguments (worth 20% of our final grade). Despite student concerns raised raised in class, Prof. Burton refused to talk about the oral arguments that week and stated that we “might” get to them on April 14th. In fact, we spent a total of 15 minutes discussing oral arguments on April 14th and Prof. Burton directed us to a 20 page reading assignment in our text to learn everything else about the the subject. She noted an “evaluation” sheet for the oral argument on the TWEN site but did not go over it with us. The evaluation sheet seemed confusing to many many students but there was no time left in class to go over it. Meanwhile, the other Lawyering seminars had been discussing and mooting oral arguments in class, which leaves 3
us feeling unprepared as we face the other seminar section in our graded oral arguments. b. Prof. Burton’ Burton’ss evaluations evaluations of our first first draft brief assignme assignments nts were inconsis inconsistent tent with what she claimed she was was looking for. for. Many of us attempted to incorporate her verbal feedback from a draft rule statement in our graded draft brief, only to have her mark those items wrong wrong on our graded evaluations. This left us feeling feeling confused as to what she really is looking for in our work. This problem has continued both in class and in one-on-one interactions. c. Often, Prof. Prof. Burton Burton refuse refusess to explain explain to us us how to improve improve our written written work, work, instead directing us to “go read the case again” because we did not read it correctly or closely enough, or to “go to the Writing Writing Center.” Center.” Again, this is inconsistent with the Lawyering curriculum, which is intended to give us instructor-guided support while we build our writing skills. IV. IV. PROFESSI PROFESSIONALI ONALISM SM a. Prof. Burton Burton was was unavailable unavailable to meet meet with student studentss for three three differen differentt office office hours that she had setup before our first brief deadline, on the following dates: Feb. 27th ,28th, and, 29th. As a result, many students were unable to get feedback from from her on how to improve our briefs. briefs. She never explained why she was absent for these office hours. b. During the the mandatory mandatory student-tea student-teacher cher conferences conferences to to discuss discuss our draft pretria pretriall th th briefs on extraordinary circumstances on March 6 -13 , Prof. Burton arrived late for some meetings with students and refused to e xtend the meeting times with those students due to her tardiness. tardiness. Many students found these these conferences to be unproductive and frustrating since Prof. Burton had no t read the entire briefs, nor had she evaluated them before the conferences. c. Several Several students students have have noted that Prof. Prof. Burton Burton has has a condescendi condescending ng way of of addressing students, often telling us that we are not “thinking like lawyers” when we are unable to understand a concept. i. Exam Exampl ple: e: On Janu January ary 28th, Prof. Burton thought she had assigned a reading to us that she had not. In fact, not a single person in the class had read the assignment but she insisted that she ha d assigned it and proceeded to scold us for our “unprofessionalism” and for not “acting an d thinking like lawyers.” Given the fact that not a single single student had read those cases, we think that the error was Prof. Burton’s and not ours. d. Prof. Burton Burton has told told at least one student student that that the student’ student’ss question question was “dumb.” “dumb.”
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e. Prof. Burton Burton generally generally fails fails to satisfa satisfactori ctorily ly answer answer clarificati clarification on questions questions about assignments and other important matters, matters, instead getting angry and distracted. On rd April 3 , one student asked her what the page limit would be for our final revised brief and she refused to answer, instead claiming claiming that he had “distracted” her. Her temper often flares unexpectedly, causing detriment to the class environment. V. A HISTOR HISTORY Y OF PROBLEMS PROBLEMS a.
We understand understand that student studentss in the Fall Fall 2007 Lawyeri Lawyering ng Seminar Seminar B section section had similar problems with Prof. Burton and even met with Dean Gomez-Velez. Gomez-Velez.
b. We understand understand that the students students of Prof. Prof. Burton’ Burton’ss Family Law Law class last last year submitted a petition requesting action taken because of her inadequate performance and also met with Dean Anderson and former Academic Dean Edwards. c. We understand understand that there have have been various various other student student complaints complaints about about Prof. Prof. Burton over time. d. We ask what Dean Anderson Anderson and Dean Gomez-V Gomez-Velez have done done to address these these issues and why Prof. Burton’s neglect of duty and incompetent service is tolerated at CUNY Law year after year. year. The students at this school deserve better. better.
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