Failing Without Taking the Class Article Swipe
YOU?
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· 2025
· Open Access
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· DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/aaptstudies202557104
· OA: W4410185780
We have noticed a worrying trend of students receiving failing grades because they disappear. They stop showing up to class and stop submitting work. They become unresponsive to email and do not take up offers of help. In a real sense, these students fail but have not taken the class. In this essay, we attempt to address this issue by examining systemic and structural features of higher education that contribute to this phenomenon, using our home institution, San José State University, as an example. We look at add/drop policies and argue that they create an environment that is hostile for the student population our university serves—primarily first-generation students of color with low socioeconomic status. We argue that these policies constitute an instance of structural injustice that becomes systemic when combined with other sources of injustice in our students’ lives. We situate these structural and systemic injustices within larger discussions of the hidden curriculum and decolonial approaches to pedagogy. Finally, we conclude with a call to action. We urge others to consider university-level policy as a source of structural injustice that interacts with wider systems of injustice. The details of how this works, however, will differ depending on contextual details particular to individual systems.
