University of Oklahoma student files discrimination report after flunking gender essay for psych class with trans instructor

A graduate assistant was removed from her position amid investigations into a contested discrimination report filed by a disgruntled student who repeatedly referenced the Bible in an essay response to an article about gender stereotypes — for a course taught by a transgender instructor.

In her essay, which was supposed to cover “how people are perceived based on societal expectations of gender,” University of Oklahoma student Samantha Fulnecky presented a Biblically-fueled tirade against the notion that there are multiple genders.

The psychology course’s professor, graduate student Mel Curth, who uses “she/they” pronouns, failed Fulnecky on the grounds that she neglected to address the prompt and relied more on “personal ideology” than “empirical evidence,” according to a bombshell thread shared by the university’s Turning Point USA chapter.

In the essay, Fulnecky repeats ad nauseam that she doesn’t take issue with gender stereotypes because “that is how God made us.” However, she neglected to cite the article she was responding to, save for a vague reference to “teasing as a way to enforce gender norms.”

She devoted the bulk of the around 650-word essay to discussing how children are detrimentally impacted by beliefs in multiple genders, but it’s unclear if that was a focus of the original article the class had to analyze.

“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,” Fulnecky wrote.

“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,” she added.

Curth doubled-down and noted that Fulnecky’s points were “at times offensive.”

“To call an entire group of people ‘demonic’ is highly offensive, especially a minoritized population,” Curth wrote, before nitpicking the slew of contradictions in Fulnecky’s essay.

“You can say that strict gender norms don’t create gender stereotypes, but that isn’t true by definition of what a stereotype is. Please note that acknowledging gender stereotypes does not immediately denote a negative connotation, a nuance this article discusses,” she added.

Curth encouraged Fulnecky to try and “apply some more perspective and empathy” into her work moving forward and noted that she is always welcome to share her criticisms “in a way that is appropriate and using methodology of empirical psychology,” according to the post.

The instructor for another section of the same course, second-year graduate student Megan Waldron, stood by Curth’s original grade and added that she found it “concerning” that Fulnecky didn’t perceive bullying or teasing to be “a bad thing.”

“Your paper directly and harshly criticizes your peers and their opinions, which are just as valuable as yours. Disagreeing with others is fine, but there is a respectful way to go about it,” Waldron wrote.

In a statement shared on X, the University Oklahoma wrote that a “graduate student instructor” was placed on administrative leave while it probed a student’s allegations that she was illegally discriminated against “based on religious beliefs.”

Fulnecky, Waldron, and Curth were not mentioned by name in the statement. It’s unclear if Waldron and Curth were both axed in the wake of the complaint.