Story Archive

College-Level Poetry Slam

Donna Kikkert, 59, is pursuing a bachelor’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. She took an Advanced Creative Writing Poetry course, where she expected to hear about poets like Robert Frost and Edgar Allan Poe. Instead, she says, the course focused on “lesbians, illicit sexual relationships, incest and frequent swearing.” Kikkert says her complaints about the material resulted in an F grade for the course. The university ignored her efforts to raise the grade, so she went to court to ask a judge to force the school to give her an A. “She has swung the pendulum far to the side of LGBT students,” Kikkert said in the lawsuit. “And, in doing so, has chosen to totally discount the importance and the validity of the mainstream student population.” She also asked for the professor, Patricia Dyjak, to be suspended or fired. “Kikkert’s complaint fails because it does not provide any legal authority,” says Assistant Attorney General Katherine Spitz. The judge dismissed the case, but Kikkert said she is considering an appeal. (MS/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) ...Maybe she should have pursued a law degree instead.