Students failing Bible-based essay on gender wont affect final grade, trans instructor placed on leave after backlash
A University of Oklahoma student’s final grade won’t be affected after she controversially flunked a Bible-based essay on gender that was assigned by a trans instructor — triggering widespread backlash.Samantha Fulnecky, 20, filed a discrimination complaint with the school last week after she was given an F for arguing in her psychology class paper that “belief in multiple genders” was “demonic.”The school has since revealed the failing grade will have no bearing on Fulnecky’s academic standing after the course’s professor, Mel Curth, was placed on leave and administrators launched a probe into the junior’s complaint.
The controversial assignment was supposed to account for 3% of Fulnecky’s final grade.For the assignment, Curth — a transgender grad student who uses “she/they” pronouns — had asked students to pen a 650-word response to an academic article that weighed whether conformity with gender norms was associated with popularity or bullying among middle school students.In her essay, Fulnecky noted she was frustrated by the premise of the study because she doesn’t believe that there are more than two genders based on her understanding of the Bible.“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,” she wrote, adding that promoting the belief in multiple genders would lead society to move “farther from God’s original plan for humans.”“I live my life based on this truth and firmly believe that there would be less gender issues and insecurities in children if they were raised knowing that they do not belong to themselves, but they belong to the Lord.”Fulnecky received zero points for her paper.The instructor noted that they failed the psych major on the grounds that she neglected to address the prompt and relied more on “personal ideology” than “empirical evidence.” “Please note that I am not deducting points...