Petition Letter
Dear Associate Dean Dr. Dorit Naaman,
I am petitioning for a review of the grade given on my final paper for PHIL 276 Crit Perspective Soc Diversity (Winter 2026), instructed by Dalitso Ruwe. The mark for the final paper was returned to me on May 1st, 2026, and I received a 10/40 or 25%. There was no in-line feedback showing how I got the 10 points or how I lost 30, making the number seem arbitrary. I was provided no real feedback other than a copy and paste of my thesis and a message that stated, You can't pass off already established research as your own research without citing that these ideas come from [another] paper. I am confused as the paper they linked was, Dalitso, Ruwe. Eugenic caricatures of black male death from the nineteenth-to twenty-first centuries. Theory & Event 25, no. 3 (2022): 665-688. This was not quoted or paraphrased; because of this, I did not include any footnotes or citations for it. I understand that the idea of pathologizing black bodies and George Floyd is a similar theme between the papers, but I didn't think that was an issue, as there are a lot of papers that share these themes. All the sources used in the paper were from my own research, and I believe I cited them all as they should have been. If I did fail to cite a source properly, I feel like that does not warrant such a low grade on the assignment. I did not mean to rip off anyone's work, and I apologize as I was not intending to pass off others' work as mine. I am more than happy to correct any mistakes I made if need be, and prove that this was not my intention in the slightest. Thank you for your consideration, and sorry once again for any inconvenience I caused.
Sincerely,
Porter Nice-Hart
I am petitioning for a review of the grade given on my final paper for PHIL 276 Crit Perspective Soc Diversity (Winter 2026), instructed by Dalitso Ruwe. The mark for the final paper was returned to me on May 1st, 2026, and I received a 10/40 or 25%. There was no in-line feedback showing how I got the 10 points or how I lost 30, making the number seem arbitrary. I was provided no real feedback other than a copy and paste of my thesis and a message that stated, You can't pass off already established research as your own research without citing that these ideas come from [another] paper. I am confused as the paper they linked was, Dalitso, Ruwe. Eugenic caricatures of black male death from the nineteenth-to twenty-first centuries. Theory & Event 25, no. 3 (2022): 665-688. This was not quoted or paraphrased; because of this, I did not include any footnotes or citations for it. I understand that the idea of pathologizing black bodies and George Floyd is a similar theme between the papers, but I didn't think that was an issue, as there are a lot of papers that share these themes. All the sources used in the paper were from my own research, and I believe I cited them all as they should have been. If I did fail to cite a source properly, I feel like that does not warrant such a low grade on the assignment. I did not mean to rip off anyone's work, and I apologize as I was not intending to pass off others' work as mine. I am more than happy to correct any mistakes I made if need be, and prove that this was not my intention in the slightest. Thank you for your consideration, and sorry once again for any inconvenience I caused.
Sincerely,
Porter Nice-Hart