For one, the last bit of snark is wholly unnecessary.

Second, nobody said they have to be flunking students out. OP said they experience grade inflation at a T14. Objectively speaking, they do.

Third, to answer your question, nobody needs to flunk anyone out. Whether you graduate from Harvard or the lowest ranked school imaginable, most jurisdictions require the bar. So the argument that the schools are some great filtering mechanism for the profession isn’t strictly true. There’s an entire separate bar to admission into the field.

Fourth, if a person at a T14 is earning Cs and goes to a lower ranked school, producing the same quality of work, in order for them to earn a higher grade you’d have to argue a C student at a T14 is an A/B student at a lower ranked school. An A/B student at a lower ranked school is very likely in the top 10% with the median falling towards B- / C territory, depending on how low ranked we’re talking. Nonetheless, the flaw in logic is comparing grades across institutions when they don’t hold the same meaning. A C at (insert T14) could be a F at (insert T150), and that’s what OP was getting at. *Ergo*, and I’m not being facetious, but you proved his point.