Policy The Academic Senate reaffirms the judgmental nature of the academic grading process used in the university and the responsibility of professors and teachers to make appropriate judgments on the success or failure of the academic accomplishments of their students. The senate further reaffirms the right of the professors and teachers within the university, as a legitimate dimension of academic freedom, to make these academic judgments free of external coercion.   The Academic Senate, however, recognizes that students have a right to appeal any failing final grades that they assert have been determined by nonacademic criteria. Therefore, the Academic Senate also reaffirms the principle that failing grades may be overruled under certain circumstances and establishes the procedures given below by which a student may appeal a failing final grade or a nonpass received in academic endeavors such as course work, comprehensive examinations, dissertations or final doctoral oral examinations.