OU instructor placed on leave after student says she failed assignment for Christian beliefs

A graduate student instructor at the University of Oklahoma was placed on administrative leave after a student claimed she was religiously discriminated against for receiving a “zero” on an assignment.

Samantha Fulnecky, a junior at the university, was asked to write a 650-word essay for a psychology course. The essay was assigned as a response to an article focusing on gender roles and mental health.

The rubric for the assignment asked students to read the article and provide a “thoughtful reaction” to the material. It also welcomed students to agree or disagree with the article’s content and explain why.

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Fulnecky’s submission was released by OU’s chapter of Turning Point USA, the conservative organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk.

Her essay used interpretations of the Bible as the basis for her disagreement with the material. It included lines such as:

• “God made male and female and made us differently from each other on purpose and for a purpose.”
• “Women naturally want to do womanly things because God created us with those womanly desires in our hearts.”
• “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.”
• “My prayer for the world and specifically for American society and youth is that they would not believe the lies being spread from Satan that make them believe they are better off as another gender from what God made them.”

The full release of Fulnecky’s essay can be found here.

It is also worth noting that Fulnecky’s submission did not include direct quotations or proper MLA or APA citations for either the course material or the biblical scripture she alluded to — inclusions that are standard for college-level argumentative essays.

Fulnecky received a 0/25 for her submission. Her graduate student instructor’s grading response was also obtained by TPUSA.

The first sentence of the instructor’s response reads:

“Please note that I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs, but instead I am deducting points for you posting a reaction paper that does not answer the questions for this assignment, contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive.”

Another professor also examined the submission and agreed with the instructor’s critiques. A portion of her response reads:

“I concur with [the instructor] on the grade you received. This paper should not be considered as a completion of this assignment. Everyone has different ways in which they see the world, but in an academic course such as this you are asked to support your ideas with empirical evidence and higher-level reasoning.”

Both responses can be found in full here.

TPUSA also explicitly called for the removal of the instructor, posting the hashtag “#FireProfessor[Instructor’s name],” and tagging several prominent Oklahoma politicians.

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In response to the criticism generated by TPUSA’s coverage of the situation on social media, OU released a statement on Sunday.

In the statement, the university said it takes “concerns involving the First Amendment” seriously and has “acted swiftly to address the matter.”

OU also confirmed that the instructor was placed on administrative leave and that the full-time professor would manage the course for the remainder of the semester.

Following the statement, Fulnecky posted the following message to her Instagram Story:

“This is the statement OU released today on X. They claim on social media to care about religious discrimination because they’re facing public consequences for their actions. The reality is that the university never said anything to me about whether they were going to resolve this issue or not. They only told me how to submit a grade appeal and a discrimination report. If this situation was regarding any other religion, I’m sure President Harroz would apologize to them personally on behalf of the university and would assure them they wouldn’t let this happen again. But when it comes to Christianity, they’ll only act apologetic when they’re faced with social media backlash.”

The situation has generated backlash from both sides.

Supporters of Fulnecky claim that, even if she did not write an essay deserving of a perfect grade, she was denied credit because of her religious stance.

Others argue that Fulnecky’s submission did not meet the minimum requirements for a college-level assignment, as it lacked evidence-based arguments, academic citations, and thoughtful engagement with the assigned material. Because of this, they believe the grade was justified.