Hey, welcome to the real world pal. Wait until you get a real job and have to be part of a team. You will not always be judged on your individual efforts alone from hereon out. In the real world if your team fails then you fail. I suggest you try to be a better leader and take more control of the team if you are so concerned about what grade your money is buying you. You are being tough real world lessons, you should appreciate it!! You will probably not even be able to find a lawer to take your case, let alone win one like that.

Good luck in your education!

I’m not quite sure what constitutes a “major university,” but such groupthink is common everywhere. And it does reflect the world outside the academic setting. If you’re concerned with the outcome, your best approach is to volunteer to become group leader, making you responsible for the resulting product. It also allows you to turn the screws on members who aren’t pulling their weight. In addition, it gives you the right to approach the professor with any problems of a personnel or academic nature that may arise. This could stand you in good stead later when final grades are issued or a letter or recommendation is requested. It never hurts to be considered a leader…

What are you going to do in the real world when you get on a team effort headed by a nincompoop VP who brings along two of his close department friends and the girl he’s banging and you’re new kid on the block and they are just going with the worst ideas and the final results will determine your future with the company.

This is called office politics.

You can always hand in a MINORITY REPORT.

That will take guts.

It would be YOU going up against THEM and detailing WHAT SHOULD be been done and HOW to do it, your own PERSONAL view, your OWN INDEPDENT WORK that could get you extra credit in the POSTIVE or NEGATIVE depending on just how right you got things didn’t get things!

While I don’t have any references for you, I seriously have to agree with you. Don’t get me wrong- people need to know how to collaborate with others in the work force all the time, so team work is a skill everyone should learn. However, on a college level, group work is a waste of time, and you’ve got a great point about it being unfair w/regards to grading. If you’re really passionate about it, contact a lawyer who can steer you in the right direction. 🙂

Hah! this is rich! you need to take a govt class.

Academic freedom is what we have here in the US. it means:

the institution can:

teach what it wants

decides who teaches it

decides how it is taught

decides who gets in to learn it.

Government can not make any law abridging these rights.

first amendment!~

If you plan to take the case, you’ll have to find a law firm that would be willing to go to the supreme court. good luck with that!

so start working well with others. when you get a job, you WILL have to deal with others and possibly *shudder* collaborate.

so to summarize: like it or not – The Supreme court summarized the “four essential freedoms” that constitute academic freedom: (in Regents of the Univ. of California v. Bakke) they said:

“`It is the business of a university to provide that atmosphere which is most conductive to speculation, experiment and creation. It is an atmosphere in which there prevail “the four essential freedoms” of a university – to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.”

as a student you really should know this.

“

Everyone has to go through this. If you are so bothered by it then I would suggest talking to your teacher about it first. Aren’t you used to this by now–being in college?