Dean Allyson Green at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts is facing quite a backlash over a response to the demand for a refund from students of part of their tuition. Green sent out a video of her dancing. She has instantly become the image of a dean fiddling (or dancing) as academia burns in the Corona crisis. Indeed, the backlash is so great, they may be soon calling Emperor Nero the Allyson Green of ancient Rome.

Like many schools, the law school is debating how to change our grading system as we move to an online curriculum during this outbreak. Various proposals have been advanced in different schools from a blanket pass/fair system to an option for students to take a grade or opt for a credit. Columbia Professor Jenny Davidson, however, has a curious solution: give everyone As regardless of the course, their work, or their performance before the outbreak. Of course, putting everyone in the top one percent leaves no one in the top one percent. Responding to a viral contagion with grade inflation is a rather dubious concept. She is not alone. Students at Harvard have called for grading scale that runs only from A to A-. I thought that was a pretty loony idea until I read Professor Davidson’s column. It now seems like the model of restraint and reason.