In a huge win for Christianity and religious liberty in the United States, the University of Oklahoma, just days before Christmas, changed course and officially ruled in favor of a student who was targeted by a woke, radical transgender professor for quoting the Bible in a class writing assignment on gender roles.
As background, the student, named Samantha Fulnecky, cited the Bible when writing from a classic, Christian faith-oriented position to support traditional gender roles in a class assignment on the subject. The teacher assistant who taught the class, a transgender individual, reacted with fury to the paper and gave Samantha a 0/25.
The university initially didn’t help Samantha, but, after immense fury and backlash online, responded by correcting Samantha’s grade to give her a reasonable score on the assignment, and fired the teacher’s assistant who was responsible for the ridiculous grade on her paper, announcing that the TA no longer has instructional duties at the school.
Announcing the changed response to the matter in a widely promulgated statement, the University of Oklahoma began by saying, “A student’s claim of religious discrimination on an individual assignment in an online Psychology Course taught by a graduate teaching assistant has come to resolution. As stated previously, the student followed two available processes at the University: the grade appeals process in the college and she made a formal claim of illegal religious discrimination.”
Continuing, the university went on to articulate how it had corrected the obviously ridiculous grade in favor of the student, saying, “As already announced, the grade appeal was decided in favor of the student, removing the assignment completely from the student’s total point value of the class, resulting in no academic harm to the student.”
Building on that, and turning to the more serious matter of religious discrimination, the school noted that it could not release findings from its discrimination investigation but that the provost has examined the matter independently. It said, The claim for discrimination has been investigated and concluded. The University does not release findings from such investigations. At the same time of the investigation, the Provost-the University’s highest ranking academic officer— and the academic Dean reviewed the full facts of the matter.”
It then noted that the TA has a history of discrimination and has been fired from the instruction role, saying, “Based on an examination of the graduate teaching assistant’s prior grading standards and patterns, as well as the graduate teaching assistant’s own statements related to this matter, it was determined that the graduate teaching assistant was arbitrary in the grading of this specific paper. The graduate teaching assistant will no longer have instructional duties at the University.”
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It then hinted at the major administrative turmoil this has caused, saying, “Because this matter involves both student and faculty rights, the University has engaged in repeated and detailed conversations with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee to ensure there is an understanding of the facts, the process, and the actions being taken.”
Concluding, it said, “The University of Oklahoma believes strongly in both its faculty’s rights to teach with academic freedom and integrity and its students’ right to receive an education that is free from a lecturer’s impermissible evaluative standards. We are committed to teaching students how to think, not what to think. The University will continue to review best practices to ensure that its instructors have the comprehensive training necessary to objectively assess their students’ work without limiting their ability to teach, inspire, and elevate our next generation.”
Watch Fulnecky describe what happened in the class here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video