What RateMyProfessors Taught Me About Judging Others

I was three clicks away from registering for a literature seminar as part of my MA in humanities when I did what everyone does before committing a significant amount of time to a stranger: I googled her.

I had never heard her name before. No mutual colleagues, no friends who took a class with her, nothing. So I started investigating, and one of the first results was a RateMyProfessors page. I clicked on it and found myself reading something that seemed less like a record of one person and more like two entirely different human beings filed under the same name.

One review was a mixture of admiration and resentment. The student described her as sharp beyond measure — someone whose mind moved faster than the room could keep up with — but complained that her classroom felt like a duel. She would throw out a strange, half-provocative question and then simply wait, staying silent for 30 minutes or longer.

Another student described a real dread. Mornings ruined before they even began. A professor who lectured on material that never appeared on the exam, then tested on material that had never been covered in class. Pop quizzes stacked on top of pop quizzes. The language was theatrical — the kind of exaggerated, half-serious despair people often write when venting anonymously online at 1 a.m. But the contempt underneath it was unmistakable.

Yet other reviews expressed neither dread nor resentment. “A great lecturer!” “The smartest professor in the school!” They described someone who always made time for students and who would practically write your essays for you if you simply asked for guidance.

I stared at the page and still couldn’t make up my mind. Should I register? Who was this professor, a demon or a saint?

It would be easy to average these reviews out — to split the difference and conclude that she is probably “pretty good, with some rough edges.” But that misses something deeper.

The student who found her exhilarating and the student who found her exhausting were very possibly sitting in the same classroom, hearing the same thirty seconds of silence after she posed a difficult question, and experiencing two completely different realities. One heard a challenge. The other heard a threat. The professor did not change between those two students; the students did.

This is what a page like this actually reveals, if we read it carefully: character is not a simple fact that can be extracted from a report. It is something that is filtered through the person doing the reporting — through their expectations, their tolerance for discomfort, their intellectual temperament, and their previous experiences.

A report does not simply describe the person being reported on. It also reveals something about the person giving the report.

How to Judge Others

This is not a new insight. It is old enough to appear in the Mishnah. In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah teaches: “Judge every person favorably.” This is not merely a call for kindness or optimism. It is an obligation to resist the easiest negative interpretation of another person and to actively search for a more charitable explanation before reaching judgment.

Jewish tradition recognizes that criticism often reveals something about the critic as well. The Talmud warns against being quick to identify faults in others, noting that people sometimes recognize in others the very qualities they struggle with themselves. The lesson is particularly relevant when reading an anonymous, angry review: we should ask not only, “What does this tell me about her?” but also, “What does the intensity of this reaction tell me about the person writing it?”

The laws of lashon hara take this even further. Judaism does not simply say, “Be nice” or “Never criticize.” Rather, it demands caution before allowing negative information about another person to influence our actions. We must consider whether the information is reliable, whether there are alternative explanations, whether the criticism is being shared for a constructive purpose, and whether accepting it will cause unjustified harm.

A few anonymous complaints, however vivid or emotionally compelling, rarely meet that standard.

That does not mean the RateMyProfessors page should simply be dismissed. I am sure this professor is an unusual character, not an ordinary lecturer. The students who admire her and those who dislike her are all telling me something real about their own experiences. But avoiding the class because of the negative reviews would probably be unfair both to the professor — and to myself, who might miss out on a genuinely valuable academic experience. If we have doubts about people, getting to know them ourselves is usually better than relying only on secondhand information. So for now, I will give her the benefit of the doubt. I would rather experience my own thirty seconds of silence after a difficult question and decide for myself what they mean.