\u201cOU remains firmly committed to fairness, respect and protecting every student\u2019s right to express sincerely held religious beliefs,\u201d the university wrote in an email on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The school added that the failing grade \u2014 which was supposed to account for 3% of Fulnecky\u2019s final grade \u2014 would not affect the junior\u2019s academic standing. An investigation into Fulnecky\u2019s discrimination complaint is still ongoing.<\/p>\n
The assignment was for a psychology class about lifespan development. Students were asked to write a 650-word response to an academic study that examined whether conformity with gender norms was associated with popularity or bullying among middle school students. <\/p>\n
Fulnecky wrote that she was frustrated by the premise of the article because she doesn\u2019t believe that there are more than two genders based on her understanding of the Bible, according to a copy of her essay<\/a> provided to The Oklahoman<\/a>. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel.<\/p>\n \u201cSociety pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely harms American youth,\u201d she wrote. <\/p>\n She argued that promoting the belief in multiple genders would lead society to move \u201cfarther from God\u2019s original plan for humans.\u201d<\/p>\n The essays were graded out of 25 points, broken down by whether the student demonstrated an understanding of the article and addressed a specific aspect of the argument put forth. Fulnecky received zero points for her work.<\/p>\n \u201cPlease note that I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs,\u201d the instructor wrote in feedback obtained by The Oklahoman. Instead, the instructor said the paper did \u201cnot answer the questions for the assignment.\u201d<\/p>\n The paper \u201ccontradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive\u201d the criticism went on. <\/p>\n A contact for the instructor, whose name has not been confirmed by the university, was not immediately available. <\/p>\n Fulnecky\u2019s complaint to the administration soon went viral after the school\u2019s chapter of Turning Point USA, a conservative group founded by Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in September, posted about Fulnecky\u2019s experience on the social media site X. <\/p>\n \u201cProfessors like this are the very reason conservatives can\u2019t voice their beliefs in the classroom,\u201d the group posted. <\/p>\n Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt appeared to affirm that perspective, posting on X that the situation was \u201cdeeply concerning.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m calling on the OU regents to review the results of the investigation & ensure other students aren\u2019t unfairly penalized for their beliefs,\u201d he wrote<\/a>. <\/p>\n The firestorm comes after a professor at Texas A&M was fired earlier<\/a> this year after a video where a student confronted the instructor over her teaching of issues related to gender identity in a class on children\u2019s literature went viral. A university committee in late November ruled that the firing<\/a> was without good cause, and flouted formal procedure. <\/p>\n Since Trump took office, student affinity groups have shuttered campus offices and professors have altered curriculums<\/a>. The president has also threatened federal funding for schools who don\u2019t comply with standards for teaching<\/a>, admissions and gender in sports supported by the administration. Both supporters and opponents of the Trump administration\u2019s campaign say that freedom of speech is at stake. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An instructor at the University of Oklahoma has been placed on leave after a student complained that she…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":423107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[19719,16720,168,69,407,25742,57,11294,181121,50,6324,5847,365,367,197428,358,5028,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-423106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-charlie-kirk","10":"tag-colleges-and-universities","11":"tag-domestic-news","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-education","14":"tag-gender","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-kevin-stitt","17":"tag-local-news-for-apple","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-ok-state-wire","20":"tag-oklahoma","21":"tag-religion","22":"tag-religion-and-politics","23":"tag-samantha-fulnecky","24":"tag-texas","25":"tag-tx-state-wire","26":"tag-u-s-news","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115658917258153060","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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