Should failing students really graduate as doctors?

If I seem to be bashing universities lately, they’ve asked for it. The prestigious New York University in lower Manhattan didn’t cover itself in glory when, just before this semester began, it responded to a petition from 82 students (out of a class of 350) by sacking the professor. The petitioners’ main objection? The course was too hard.

After retiring from Princeton’s chemistry department where he’d taught organic chemistry for more than 40 years, Maitland Jones Jr taught the same course at NYU on one-year contracts as an adjunct. I used to be an adjunct, and this much hasn’t changed since my day: adjuncts are atrociously paid. I’m just guessing, but Dr Jones would surely have been handsomely remunerated at Princeton. His pension must be plump. He could only have continued to teach organic chemistry at NYU for chump change out of passion for his subject and perhaps a devotion to community service.