The Unofficial Case of Lee vs. Brody

A little after midnight on May 22, I received a call from my cousin Crystal Lee, a graduating senior at San Francisco State. She told me that she was planning to forgo her plan of going to China the coming year because of a small bump that might impede her from being the Class of 2007.

She told me that she was flunking out of a class taught by Michal Brody, a lecturer in the English Department. Crystal had made her best efforts in trying to pass this one class that she wasn’t supposedly to be taking anyway, but she had to take it because another required class was not available.

I had no doubt that, although quiet and passive, Crystal was a reasonably good student and it was unjust for her to flunk out because Michal refused to give her a passing grade on her final paper that represented 7% of her course grade.

“Talk to her, Crystal. She’s your instructor,” I said.

“Well… I tried. I also spoke with the department head but he said it was something between me and her. I tried talking to her but she just walked away.” Now that made me angry because I think the greatest flaw of a teacher would be one’s refusal to listen.

Recalling my Berkeley spirit from over a decade ago, I thought I’d write Michal a short and polite note to offer help as a negotiator between her and Crystal.

The next day, I got back a curt and angry response from her saying, “Quentin Lee, I don't know you. This is none of your business. Your message is inappropriate. Your tone of familiarity with me is inappropriate. Don't contact me again.” She signed, “Lecturer, Department of English, San Francisco State University.”

Her e-mail certainly perked up my morning beyond my protein shake. I was rather appalled to receive such a mean spirited e-mail from a representative of SF State’s English Department. Just from the “tone” of her response, you could tell what kind of an instructor she could be, how she would treat a stranger on the street, and—not to mention—how she would indeed bully a student in her class.

Yes, I have been in the City of Angels too long where we call strangers we see on the screen by their first names like “Leo” or  “Meryl.” Yes, I have been shielded from bad instructors within my limited career as an academic at Berkeley, Yale and UCLA. Even if these are the worst sins of my life, I really don’t think I deserve to be reprimanded on e-mail.

If you read that e-mail out loud, you’ll feel how mean, angry and bullying those words are. I would have certainly deserved it if I had been impolite, but it wasn’t the case. Michal sounded like she had an ax to grind. Her e-mail does not reflect well on the English Department.

“What should I do? Is she going to fail me because of your e-mail?” Crystal called me on my cell.

“I thought she already failed you,” I said. “That’s why you’re fighting it.”

“Ugh… I guess so.” She sighed like a nice devout Christian girl would. “Why do I have to deal with this just as I’m about to graduate?”

“What do you think God wants you to do?” I asked, acting all Christian. “When you pray to God, do you feel you deserve your failing grade?”

“No.”

“Then fight it,” I said, recalling my gay activist days at Berkeley where one protest we stopped traffic on Market Street. It was the first time that they turned down domestic partnership. It was almost 17 years ago. And I remember people were scared in their cars as we marched down Market to the City Hall where someone set a fire there.