The funny part is the Poli-sci seminar Prof with whom I took the course where several classmates flunked before and/or received C level grades wasn’t considered the hardest Prof/harshest grader. If anything, he was regarded as one of the more easy-going Profs in the department regarding those areas.
Also, some English lit Profs I’ve had were harsher graders and much more likely to ding you for minutiae.
Still a miracle how I ended up with an A in the class considering I never considered myself a great writer for English lit and I’ve always had issues studying poetry and that made up a sizable chunk of the course. The grade distribution in that course leaned heavily towards B-/C/C- direction with some failures on the final grades distribution posted in the department.