Hey guys, so I need some advice:

Without getting into the exact details, last summer I wrote a paper on a women's magazine. The instructor (a women) claimed I did not write it, as she did not believe men had such a deep understanding of women's issues that my paper had demonstrated. As a result she demanded I re-write the paper or face getting a 0%.

Long story short, I dropped the course and appealed to Student Accounts to get my tuition refunded--they did.

Here we are a year later I see there are some strict guidelines a department has to follow when confronted with sexism. I am concerned the department head did not follow those procedures and instead 'swept it under the rug'. At the time I offered to submit the documentation of sexism and he rejected taking/seeing it.

So now learning there were rules the department had to follow, and steps I could have taken to make sure that happened, I am wondering if I should now contact the department head and basically ask if he followed the university procedure (which given the evidence he should have).

I am not vindictive, I don't want to see anyone fired, I just feel it wasn't taken seriously and am concerned there will be more victims like myself if the incident wasn't properly documented. However I don't want to seem 'crazy' contacting a department head and trying to hold him to university policy over a year later.

What do you guys think? Should I just forget about all this and hope it was handled properly? Or, even though it was a year ago, should I see whether the university took the appropriate steps?

EDIT (11/12/11): Thanks for all the advice! I really appreciate it. I want to use this edit to clarify a few things and provide an update.

  • I have contacted the same department head I meet with last year. I cited the institution's policies and asked whether the department followed them. I am awaiting a reply.

  • I understand many here believe going back the the department head would be a bad move. While I am personally unsure whether this was handled properly by the department, it may have very well been. I would like to give the department an opportunity to state their position. Going beyond them without their statement may look more like a witch hunt than a legitimate concern. I believe using all the resources available to me and engaging everyone involved in a respectful manner is the only way I can pursue this in a meaning way.

  • The paper I wrote was not particularly brilliant, I hastily wrote it in a week. It highlighted issues in women's magazines that many of us on Reddit acknowledge in other discussions. That's what's so interesting about this case, the instructor was so detached from the actual perceptiveness of men she assumed even the most basic understanding of female consumerism is over men's heads. To respect confidentiality of all those involved I cannot provide the paper, or the discriminatory letter (yes, she made all her remarks in a letter).

  • The instructor is not a tenured professor. She has a B.A. and M.A. and teaches via correspondence, what we call 'sessional' instructors. They are contracted on what I assume is an annual basis.

Lastly:

  • The institution's policies and local laws are incredibly verbose regarding discrimination and preventative action. I am confident that if appropriate action was not pursued there is simply no way the institution could avoid acknowledging that without subjecting them to serious penalties under the law. By my count there are four distinct and separate departments within the institution that deal almost exclusively with these kind of issues, ie. there are lots of people I can engage to solve this.

Also:

To all the downvoters: What's your opinion! Please, if you disagree with pursuing this, I'd appreciate your opinion.