Missouri university I teach at changed my students’ grades without asking | Opinion

If you’re a parent sending a student to the University of Missouri-Kansas City or Metropolitan Community College — or to Mizzou, Missouri State or Lincoln University — you probably assume one simple thing: The professor who teaches the class decides the final grade.

But that assumption isn’t guaranteed anymore. When grades and hiring decisions are routed through learning management systems, human resources portals and workflow tools, real authority can shift from the classroom to whoever holds back-end access.

Kansas Citians have watched Jefferson City debate higher education through funding formulas, curriculum fights, and diversity, equity and inclusion restrictions. Those debates matter. But there’s a quieter question with just as much impact on Kansas City students and taxpayers:

Who actually controls academic decisions — especially grades and faculty hiring — when those decisions are executed inside administrative software systems?

When shared governance is reduced to permissions and policy fine print, it stops being a living principle. The American Association of University Professors has long argued that faculty should have primary authority over curriculum and grading. (See the organization’s Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities at aaup.org)

I’ve seen the stakes up close at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. According to internal records and court filings, failing grades I entered for plagiarism-related work were later changed to passing grades through the back end of the school’s learning management system — without my consent. An executive committee review by Lincoln’s faculty governing board independently confirmed the faculty followed university procedures and respected student due process — yet the grade changes still proceeded. Faculty search decisions were also overridden by nonacademic offices. After I objected through internal channels and asked for clear, faculty-run processes, I was placed on administrative leave and my courses were reassigned.

Kansas City should care for three reasons. First, trust: Kansas City’s education-to-workforce pipeline depends on credentials that employers and graduate programs can rely on. Transcripts should mean what they say. Second, compliance: Accreditors can raise red flags when academic authority is unclear, and Title IV federal student aid depends on genuine academic evaluation. Third, equity: Federal officials estimate Missouri underfunded Lincoln University by roughly $361 million from 1987 to 2020 in per-student support, when compared with the University of Missouri.

This power shift often starts as technical access — a registrar’s office gets back-end permissions to fix an error, or HR retains a quiet veto in hiring workflows. Over time, those privileges can become routine tools to change grades over faculty objections or block department-recommended hires without any academic explanation.

Missouri can modernize without secret grade control. Three guardrails would protect students and taxpayers as much as faculty:

• No final grade changes without the instructor’s written sign-off or a transparent, faculty-run appeal.
• Faculty-led hiring with any administrative veto explained in writing and tied to published criteria.
• An annual public report showing how many final grades were changed after submission and how often faculty hiring recommendations were overridden.

These are not radical demands. They are basic consumer protection for families paying tuition and for Kansas City taxpayers funding public degrees.

Kansas City students get one transcript, and Missouri gets one reputation. If a grade can be changed off-screen in Jefferson City, it can be changed tomorrow in Kansas City. Missouri should make sure the people who actually teach the classes — not the software they’re required to use — own the grade.

Emir J. Phillips is an associate professor of finance at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. His lawsuit against the university is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri (Jefferson City Division), Case No. 2:25-cv-04025-BP. He writes here in his personal capacity.