Gregory was intrigued. He decided to write his paper about the amendment and argue that it was still alive and could be ratified. He got to work, being very meticulous about citations and fonts and everything. He turned it in to the teaching assistant for his class — and got it back with a C.

He didn’t know what to make of it. He was sure it was better than a C.

He appealed the grade to the professor, Sharon Waite.

“I kind of glanced at it, but I didn’t see anything that was particularly outstanding about it and I thought the C was probably fine,” she recalls.

Most people would have just taken the grade and left it at that. Gregory is not most people.

“So I thought right then and there, ‘I’m going to get that thing ratified.’”