What are the potential consequences of responding in kind to a rude lecturer? What are the potential consequences, if any, of being rude and abrasive with the lecturer of a course I am taking? Could I face disciplinary action? Could it affect the way my work is evaluated? Is there a serious risk of me alienating myself with other people at uni, if the lecturer speaks badly of me? 



Context.

I wrote to the lecturer and course responsible for a course which I am attending. The email I wrote contained a simple request, presented with common courtesy: could you help me determine whether I am eligible to take the exam in your course? The answer to this question would depend on the quality of the work I have submitted, feedback on which I have not received from our class instructor since I could not attend some classes due to scheduling problems with my part-time job. This I explained to the lecturer in my mail, in which I also added that feedback on said work was not present on the course website either, as is usually the case, and that I would've asked the instructor, except you have not presented us with any contact information for him (and during the classes which I did attend, I did not think of asking the instructor for such info, since I expected it to be on the course website if need be).

To my surprise, I received a rudely brief reply. I was merely told that this is my own problem, as I have decided to not show up for classes, regardless of what reason I may have, and that I should find a way to sort it out with the instructor.

I have some previous experience with this lecturer from another course, and as my perception of him is that of a lazy, unprofessional and unambitious external lecturer who probably only is in his current position due to the unfamiliarity which the administration and other key professors in my department have of the content he teaches, I couldn't stop myself from responding rudely. My reply was short, but it did contain sentences such as "let's hope the instructor has more of a clue of what's going on in this course than you apparently do" and "since my request bothered you so much, perhaps you should learn to use the basic functionalities of the course website. It's actually fairly simple stuff, but if you can't figure it out, I'm sure the office ladies in the administration can clue you in". I also said that I would make sure his rudeness would be reflected in my course evaluation.

Note.

I am not asking whether he really was being rude here, or whether my response was appropiate. The question(s) is(are) as stated above. Your opinion on my behavior or his is irrelevant.
No, we cannot answer the question without evaluating your behavior first. Your behavior was, simply said, stupid. Let's go item by item:

1) Are you enrolled in the distance-learning program? If not, then lecturer perhaps has the right to request that you attend all of his classes, unless there are valid and provable reasons (e.g. medical). In that case, scheduling conflicts mean that either you drop your part time job or you drop the course. I, as a lecturer, am extremely annoyed when someone presents part time job as a reason not to attend class, since the government in my country pays about 5000 EUR a year for his education. Being "free" for the students it does not mean that nobody pays, taxpayers do.

2) On your comment that the lecturer has his position only because no one else is familiar with the subject he teaches. Well, this is perhaps the reason why they tolerate him, and you should acknowledge this: the school thinks that this subject is important part of the curriculum and perhaps the lecturers familiar with the subject are difficult to find. This is one more reason not to annoy him, because he is clearly valuable to the school, although you may think otherwise.

3) Your comment was rude, because of the items 1) and 2) (especially due to 1). Perhaps everything you were asking him was clearly explained during the lectures you were not present at. Lecturers in higher educations have relatively large freedom of modifying and adapting their course as they see fit, even beyond the "official" requirements that are set on the web page. It would be perfectly normal if the university in general requires students to be present at the lectures, but the individual lecturers are less strict -- but then suddenly, due to low attendance, at a start of the next year, decide to enforce the rules.

Now on to your answer. What can happen in this case? Any lecturer has the freedom to ask you anything related to his course during the exam. Yes, he may ask you questions from the lectures you have been absent from, and then give you bad grade if you struggle with them. It is very rare that lecturers would go for any kind of the administrative action against the student, because their freedoms in lecturing and exams allow them to pursue more efficient means of retaliation, if they want to.

So you could only hope that he is 1) forgetful and will not remember the incident or 2) he is above the average professional and will examine you without prejudice even if he remember the way how you treated him.

And please note, it is very difficult to claim a prejudice and report him to administration - he has the right to ask you the questions from the lectures you missed - some will even argue that it is understandable to check whether you master the matter that you did not hear during the lectures, and assume that you know the rest.