AFN reported previously about the University of Oklahoma student Samantha Fulnecky who referenced her Christian beliefs and the Bible on an assignment about gender and sexuality. The teaching assistant, who goes by “she/they” pronouns, reportedly gave her a zero for giving a biblical response to an essay question. The assistant has since been removed.
According to Fox News, an assistant teaching professor from the university is under investigation for viewpoint discrimination. He allowed students to be excused from class for protesting the teaching assistants removal, but he did not allow a student to be excused for attending the counter protest. Currently, he is under administrative leave, and a replacement has taken over his class.
Ryan Haynie is vice president for legal affairs for the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA). He explained that his team was able to sit down and speak with Fulnecky on a podcast about what happened.
"The thing that struck me was that it was not the kind of essay that you and I maybe think about from our time in college, where you're doing like a research paper, right?” says Haynie. “This is an online class, and a lot of times in college when you have an online course because you're not going to class, they will give you essays to write as sort of in lieu of going to class."
He explained that Fulnecky had gotten full credit on every assignment up until that one.
"On that one, she was assigned an article that discussed gender, gender roles, traditional gender roles, and how reinforcing those with children are not helpful. And she responded in the way that a young Christian would. She explained her Christian worldview and how she felt about it, and she received a zero," states Haynie.
Haynie said that this is another example in a "long line" of cases where institutions of higher education are discriminating against students for their religious beliefs instead of helping them seek truth.
"The university deciding to remove this professor — frankly, it shouldn't have taken this instance, right? This is a person who is confused about their gender, a self-described transgender person, and the university is allowing this person to teach upper division psychology classes. That should never happen," states Haynie.
He said that person should have never been in that position to begin with. He also said that he does not know if universities will learn from this incident.
"It's hard to say. It seems to me that universities prefer to learn lessons the hard way. They tend to not learn from each other very well," says Haynie.
Haynie added that there was another grade in the course where Fulnecky received half-credit for a similar reason as this. According to him, she appealed the zero, and both of these grades will not contribute to her score in the class.
