College professors come in all kinds, some inspire curiosity, others inspire dread. The latter tend to love rules a little too much and students a little too little. Unfortunately, this story involves the second kind.
When one student missed a single class due to illness, their overzealous professor saw an opportunity to exercise control. But the student knew something the professor didn’t: the school’s policy wasn’t quite as strict as he claimed.
What happened next turned an unfair threat into a perfectly timed reality check.
Sometimes karma steps in as the smartest syllabus. The OP shared how, after the professor threatened to drop her for missing a class while sick, she marched to the department, got policy confirmation, and cornered him in the elevator: “Please explain this to him, I don’t think he’s familiar.”
He was stunned, and she survived the semester.
This dynamic touches on an important social issue, power imbalance in institutions. Authority figures often exploit ambiguity to silence dissent. When people don’t feel safe objecting, inequality consolidates.
The psychology of response to norm violations helps explain this. Research on embarrassment and public shaming suggests that visible corrective action can enforce group standards rapidly.
As American Scientist notes, embarrassment is a “form of social pain” triggered when norms are violated. In other words, forcing the professor into the spotlight may have served as a social reset.
The Journal of Psychological Research also explains that when someone acts contrary to an expected norm, embarrassment serves as a feedback signal, reminding them of what’s acceptable.
One expert writes, “Embarrassment acts as a social glue”, it reinforces norms, but with a dark side. In this case, OP’s elevator confrontation functioned like a spotlight: it forced the professor to face his own misinterpretation of policy in front of colleagues and students.
If guidance were to be offered to the OP, it would center on composure, documentation, and timing rather than confrontation for its own sake.
The most effective response to institutional overreach is to rely on written policy, involve administrative oversight, and present facts dispassionately.
By anchoring the discussion in established rules, accountability replaces emotion and forces authority to operate within boundaries.
Conflict resolution in academic hierarchies works best when fairness, not defiance, leads the exchange. When calm evidence meets overconfidence, even power must yield to process.
Here’s what the community had to contribute:
A huge wave of commenters stood behind OP, slamming the professor’s arrogance.
Meanwhile, real professors joined in to restore faith in academia.
Several users shared horror stories about controlling instructors who punished students for illness or obligations.
Others added darkly comic or reflective experiences from their academic pasts.
This story is the ultimate example of academic karma in action. There’s a special satisfaction in watching authority figures get humbled by their own rules, especially when they love enforcing them on everyone else.
Do you think the OP handled this perfectly, or should they have been more diplomatic? Would you have had the nerve to call him out face-to-face like that? Share your own tales of sweet academic revenge below!
