The College of Oklahoma has fired an teacher who was accused by a scholar of spiritual discrimination over a failing grade on a psychology paper wherein she cited the Bible and argued that selling a “perception in a number of genders” was “demonic.”
The college stated in a statement posted Monday on X that its investigation discovered the graduate educating assistant had been “arbitrary” in giving 20-year-old junior Samantha Fulnecky zero factors on the project. The college declined to remark past its assertion, which stated the teacher had been faraway from educating.
By her lawyer, the teacher, Mel Curth, denied Tuesday that she had “engaged in any arbitrary habits concerning the scholar’s work.” The lawyer, Brittany Stewart, stated in an announcement emailed to The Related Press that Curth is “contemplating all of her authorized cures.”
Conservative teams, commentators and others rapidly made Fulnecky’s failing grade a web-based trigger, highlighting her argument that she’d been punished for expressing conservative Christian views. Her case grew to become a flashpoint within the ongoing debate over educational freedom on faculty campuses as President Donald Trump pushes to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and limit how campuses focus on race, gender and sexuality.
Fulnecky appealed her grade on the project, which was price 3% of the ultimate grade within the class, and the college stated the project wouldn’t rely. It additionally positioned Curth on depart, and Oklahoma’s conservative Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, declared the state of affairs “deeply regarding.”
“The College of Oklahoma believes strongly in each its school’s rights to show with educational freedom and integrity and its college students’ proper to obtain an schooling that’s free from a lecturer’s impermissible evaluative requirements,” the college’s assertion stated. “We’re dedicated to educating college students how you can suppose, not what to suppose.”
A law approved this year by Oklahoma’s Republican-dominated Legislature and signed by Stitt prohibits state universities from utilizing public funds to finance DEI applications or positions or mandating DEI coaching. Nonetheless, the regulation says it doesn’t apply to scholarly analysis or “the tutorial freedom of any particular person school member.”
House phone listings for Fulnecky within the Springfield, Missouri, space had been disconnected, and her mom — an lawyer, podcaster and radio host — didn’t instantly reply Tuesday to a Facebook message in search of remark concerning the college’s motion.
Fulnecky’s failing grade got here in an project for a psychology class on lifespan improvement. Curth directed college students to jot down a 650-word response to a tutorial examine that examined whether or not conformity with gender norms was related to reputation or bullying amongst center college college students.
Fulnecky wrote that she was pissed off by the premise of the project as a result of she doesn’t imagine that there are greater than two genders based mostly on her understanding of the Bible, in line with a copy of her essay offered to The Oklahoman.
“Society pushing the lie that there are a number of genders and everybody must be no matter they wish to be is demonic and severely harms American youth,” she wrote, including that it will lead society “farther from God’s unique plan for people.”
In suggestions obtained by the newspaper, Curth stated the paper did “not reply the questions for the project,” contradicted itself, relied on “private ideology” over proof and “is at instances offensive.”
“Please notice that I’m not deducting factors as a result of you have got sure beliefs,” Curth wrote.
