Resentment is powerful!

When I was a kid, if you got a C, you got a C. These days, people sue.

Megan Thode isn’t the first Lehigh University student who was unhappy with the grade she received in a course. But she may be the first to sue to get it changed.

The C+ that Thode was given scuttled her dream of becoming a licensed professional counselor and was part of an effort to force her out of the graduate degree program she was pursuing, said her lawyer, Richard J. Orloski, whose lawsuit seeks $1.3 million in damages.

Orloski said his client is the victim of breach of contract and sexual discrimination, and a civil trial began Monday before Northampton County Judge Emil Giordano over the claims. They’re nonsense, said Neil Hamburg, an attorney for Lehigh University.

I agree that it’s nonsense, but people feel entitled as they never did before, and it would not surprise me to learn that professors have been murdered for giving students a C grade, just as employers have been shot for firing people.

Come to think of it, what seems to have set off that rogue cop who went on a homicidal and suicidal rampage in California was his firing from the force:

At the search’s height, more than 200 officers scoured the mountain, conducting cabin-by-cabin checks. It was scaled back Sunday — about 30 officers were out in the field Tuesday, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said.

Dorner allegedly threatened “unconventional and asymmetrical warfare” against police in a lengthy manifesto that authorities say he posted on Facebook. The posting named dozens of potential targets, including police officers, whom Dorner allegedly threatened to attack, according to authorities.

His alleged slayings began Feb. 3 with the deaths of Monica Quan, a Cal State Fullerton assistant basketball coach, and her fiance, Keith Lawrence, a USC public safety officer. Quan was the daughter of a retired LAPD captain whom Dorner allegedly blamed in part for his firing from the force in 2009.

It may very well have been wrong to fire Dorner, just as it may have been wrong to give  Thode a C+ grade.

I have felt wronged many times in my life, and I never sued anyone over it, nor did I ever go on a murderous rampage. Nor do most people. The exceptions get all the press, though, and out of all proportion to their actual numbers. So much so that it would not surprise me if employers now hesitate to fire bad employees, and teachers hesitate to give low grades to bad students.

And if that makes everything worse, who cares?

I’d hate to think this is part of a plan.