Ashley Arnold, a 27-year-old stay-at-home mom from Idaho, was put in an uncomfortable situation when her sociology professor failed her for a ridiculous reason: the teacher didn't believe Australia was actually a country. The trouble started when her professor at Southern New Hampshire University assigned a final project asking her to compare social norms in the US and another country, so Ashley chose Australia. Easy enough, right? Er, wrong. Ashley was surprised to get the assignment back with a fat old F on it and shared her confusion in a now-viral Facebook post [1].
According to Buzzfeed [2], Ashley reached out to her professor as soon as she got her grade back via email, explaining that Australia was, in fact, a country as well as a continent.
Not only did her professor totally not see the error of her ways, her tone was straight out of the condescending handbook:
I will gladly re-examine your week [two] milestone project report.
But before I do I want you to understand that any error in a project can invalidate the entire research project.
Research is like dominoes, if you accidentally knock over one piece the entire set will also fall.
Australia is a continent; it is not a country. That error made it nearly impossible for you to accurately complete your week [two] research outline correctly.
As I mentioned above I will look over your week two paper once again and see if you earned more credits than I gave you.
Clearly, her first email wasn't enough to sway the instructor, so Ashley had to back up her claim yet again.
Australia is both a country and a continent. It's the only country that is both. I provided a resource in the first email that clarifies that for you. If you need further clarification Google or the SNHU Shapiro Library has that information [for] you.
Again I mean no disrespect, but my grade is affected by your assumption that Australia is not a country when it, in fact, is.
Thank you and let me know if I need to provide further resources proving Australia is a country.
She went as far as to send her professor links to legitimate government websites in the same email to prove her point, only to be met with a lackluster response:
Finally, Ashley got the answer she was looking for — along with an even more important lesson:
In a pretty epic twist, after Southern New Hampshire University caught wind of the situation, it issued a public apology to Ashley on Twitter [4] and fired the professor in question.
We deeply regret the interaction between our professor & our student. We have apologized to Ashley, replaced the instructor, & are reimbursing her tuition for the course. To our friends in Australia, we know that you are a country & a continent, best of luck in the Olympic games!
— SNHU (@SNHU) February 9, 2018 [5]
All we can say is thank god this problem was resolved and best of luck to Ashley, who plans to graduate in May.