A graduate assistant at the University of Oklahoma has been placed on administrative leave after a student filed a discrimination complaint over a graded essay in a psychology course. The essay, written by student Samantha Fulnecky, repeatedly referenced the Bible while responding to an article on gender stereotypes in a course taught by a transgender instructor. The assignment asked students to discuss “how people are perceived based on societal expectations of gender.” In her essay, Fulnecky rejected the idea of multiple genders. “Society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely harms American youth,” Fulnecky wrote, as quoted by New York Post.Fulnecky said that gender roles are “how God made us,” and argued that belief in multiple genders harms children. She cited very little of the article she was meant to analyse, except a vague reference to teasing as a way of enforcing gender norms. The graduate assistant, Mel Curth, who uses “she/they” pronouns, gave Fulnecky a failing grade, noting that the essay relied on personal ideology rather than empirical evidence and failed to address the assignment prompt. Curth also said parts of the essay were “offensive,” particularly language describing a group of people as “demonic.”“To call an entire group of people ‘demonic’ is highly offensive, especially a minoritized population,” Curth wrote. Curth encouraged Fulnecky to bring more “perspective and empathy” to her work and suggested criticisms should follow the methods of empirical psychology. Another instructor for the course, Megan Waldron, supported the grade and added that she found it “concerning” that Fulnecky did not see bullying or teasing as harmful.“Your paper directly and harshly criticises your peers and their opinions, which are just as valuable as yours. Disagreeing with others is fine, but there is a respectful way to go about it,” Waldron added. In response to the complaint, the University of Oklahoma wrote on X that a “graduate student instructor” was placed on administrative leave while it probed a student’s allegations that she was illegally discriminated against “based on religious beliefs.”
