The writing appears to have come straight from the pen of a third-grader.
“I David E. Moor has filed a complain,” it begins.
I has read it, so I know that’s what it says.
Most of us would refer to his submission as a “complaint,” and a rather formal one at that: It is part of a legal action filed in the Summit County Court of Common Pleas.
Most of us also would manage to spell our names correctly. This person’s last name is actually Moore.
So what’s he all worked up about?
I hope you’re sitting down.
This person is suing Kent State University because he flunked out of graduate school.
Seriously.
Moore, 56, claims in his civil suit the university did not “honer” a written agreement to straighten out his situation, which came about, he writes, because “my grades were not posted on time” and also because “my civil rights ... have been violated.”
So he wants the court to step in “and allow me to finish my degree. I’m asking for financial compensation pay for my education and montery [sic] award of money.”
When it comes to monetary awards, money is among the better ones.
The case has been assigned to Judge Thomas Teodosio, who is probably ruing the day he signed up for law school.
Moore is a former teacher and coach for Akron Public Schools. He received an undergraduate degree from Fairmont State University in West Virginia and spent 25 years in the teaching profession, including seven as boys basketball coach at Buchtel.
Known on the hardwood as Dave Moore, he was All-Ohio at Central-Hower and All-America at Fairmont State, where this fall he was inducted into the university’s hall of fame. Moore was good enough to get a tryout with the Philadelphia 76ers and ended up playing five years of pro ball in Europe.
Sounds like the kind of guy who knows that some people win and some people lose, and that winning and losing is based on how well they perform.
“I feel that there were some teachers that — maybe I rubbed them wrong way, because I’m an educator myself — but for whatever reason, they were giving me incompletes and to a point where I wouldn’t even get a grade,” he says when asked about the suit.
But if you are given an “incomplete,” you’re not going to get a grade, right?
“Well, yes, but I’ve done the work and they won’t post the grade. ...
“I’ll give you an example. There was a class called ‘event planning.’ It’s a graduate, two-hour class. Come on! How can you give me an incomplete in event planning? We didn’t hardly do anything. And I did everything that was asked of me.”
Moore says he talked to six lawyers, all of whom declined to take his case. Some of them cited a conflict of interest, he says, but he suspects the real reason is they’re afraid to take on the university.
When told his court papers don’t read as if they were written by a retired educator — he didn’t even spell his own name correctly — he laughs.
“Well, my son said that. He said, ‘Let me type this up.’ I said, ‘No, no. I just want to get this over with.”
Moore is in a hurry because he is worried about the fact that courses don’t count toward a degree if too much time elapses between the first and last of them. He says he was enrolled in the KSU grad program for four years, last attending two years ago.
So what does this have to do with civil rights?
“I just don’t feel like I’ve been treated like everybody else,” he responds.
You honestly think they flunked you out because you’re black?
“I don’t know if I want to go that far,” he says. “But maybe because I am an older student. I’m not going to say because I’m black. I personally don’t believe that. But maybe my age, I think.
“I don’t know. I’m a pretty go-getcha guy. Maybe I was intimidating. Anybody who knows me knows I’m pretty intense.”
But not intense enough in the classroom, apparently.
KSU spokesman Thomas Neumann says he is unable to comment beyond confirming Moore was indeed a student there but isn’t now and did not graduate.
According to his suit, Moore was enrolled in “the Department of Education and the Sports Studys [sic] department.”
Say this about the American justice system: Everyone has access. They might not get very far, but anyone can get a foot in the door — even those who seem to be wearing their shoes on the wrong feet.
What this says about the American educational system should go without saying.
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com.
