As a parent and an adjunct professor at Moravian College, Northampton County Judge

said he could not understand how professors at

could award

a zero in class participation in 2009.

The mark sank her grade in her therapy internship course and her dream of becoming a licensed therapist.

As a judge, however, Giordano said he was bound by case law and could not bump her C-plus to a B as sought in a lawsuit filed by Thode against the Bethlehem school.

While the judge said he found Thode's testimony credible, it alone was not enough to prove her instructor Amanda Eckhardt acted arbitrarily in her decision. Eckhardt and other Lehigh staff, professors and administrators all took the stand and cited documented

.

Thode, Giordano said, "has failed to establish that the university based the awarded grade of a C-plus on anything other than purely academic reasons."

No legal precedent

The decision averted a possibly unprecedented moment in American history. Neither Giordano nor attorneys involved in the case were

where a court overturned an academic institution's grade. Lehigh attorneys argued that were Giordano to do so, he would destroy the integrity of the nation's academic system.

"Lehigh University is pleased with the judge's decision in this case to uphold the principle that university faculty have the responsibility to fairly evaluate the work of their students and that academic rigor should not be compromised," Gary Sasso, dean of Lehigh University's College of Education, said in a statement following the four-day trial.

Following Giordano's ruling, Thode sat quietly at the plaintiff's table looking stunned.

Stephen Thode, her father and a finance professor at the university, came to the table and embraced his daughter as she sat listening to her attorney, Richard Orloski. She declined to comment afterward, but Orloski said they were disappointed in Giordano's ruling.

An appeal is unlikely given the poor odds of success, Orloski said.

"It's next to impossible (to get a reversal) in a non-jury trial," he said.

Orloski argued the case amounted to breach of contract and discrimination. Eckhardt, who was a doctoral student going by the name Amanda Carr at the time, gave Megan Thode the poor grade not for academic reasons but because she disagreed with Thode's advocacy for gay marriage, Orloski argued.

A zero in participation is unheard of at the university, said the professors and administrators involved in Thode's suit, let alone to a student such as Thode who showed up to every class. Orloski argued that the grade was so unusual it opened the door for Giordano to intervene.

"My client stands alone in the history of Lehigh in getting a zero in class participation," he said.

Questioning $1.3M claim

The C-plus prevented Thode from earning a master's degree in education in counseling psychology. An expert witness for the defense calculated a person with that degree would earn $1.3 million more than a person with a bachelor's degree in psychology, Thode's undergraduate degree, over the course of a lifetime. However, Orloski said in his closing statements the lawsuit was never about the money.

"If you awarded us a dollar and changed the grade to a B, we would consider it a win," he told Giordano.

Neil Hamburg, one of Lehigh's attorneys, questioned the $1.3 million figure's validity. While Thode did not get the master's degree she desired, she did earn master's degree, which would most likely lead to higher wages.

Every Lehigh professor who took the stand said there were legitimate issues with Thode's performance. Students were required to act in a professional manner, give and receive feedback about their performances and self-reflect on their own behavior and how it may affect their viewpoints. Despite numerous warnings, Thode never took well to criticism and failed to adequately self-reflect, they said. Eckhardt's grade is a result of those behaviors, the Lehigh legal team argued.

"There is no evidence this is anything other than an academic discussion with which Ms. Thode does not agree," said attorney Michael Sacks during the trial.