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This depends a lot on the prof in question, and also on the range. 0 out of 5 is very different from 0 out of 100. (It seems it was zero out of 25, which indeed seems a bit harsh.)
It depends. Let's leave aside the fact that the topic of her essay is obviously culture war ground zero (and if the Christians and the Grievance Studies people end up wiping each other from public universities, I could not be happier). If you decide to study a certain subject, you need to engage with its premises a bit. Not necessarily believe they are true in your heart of hearts, but at least make legible arguments with them.
If you are a young earth creationist studying geology, and you refuse to date any rock to older than 4000 BC, you will fail.
If you are studying medieval French poetry, and are of the perfectly legal opinion that French is just strange monkey noises which do not convey any deeper meaning, you will fail.
If you are studying mathematics and believe that every axiomatic system is self-contradictory, and use this belief in your 'proofs', you will fail (with zero out of 100, no less).
If you are studying Catholic theology and not only are an atheist, but also believe that nothing which Augustine wrote could possibly be worth knowing, you will fail. (A lesser form of this is why I would not make a good theology student.)
None of these beliefs prevent you from completing your subject per se. A geology student who rephrases the question as "What does Satan want me to believe about the age of this rock?" can still ace his test. A mathematician can privately be a fan of falso while also being willing to construct proofs under lesser axiomatic systems. If I had sufficient incentive, I could probably learn enough doctrine to pass a theology class.
From the AP link:
IMHO, the fact that there are people who conform more or less to gender norms is certainly one of the less controversial ones as far as gender study findings go. You do not have to pay lip service to gender nonbinary to engage with this question. (Also, I have the suspicion that most Christians would not consider each and every gender norm to be good. I mean, Andrew Tate and Stoya are both beyond the 99th percentile of fulfilling some gender norms, and it seems most Christian parents would prefer their middle-school kids to behave androgynously rather than emulating them.)
So without looking up the 'study' and the exact phrasing of the question, this looks more like, "geology student was asked to describe coastal erosion, gets on a weird tangent about the earth is 6000 years old for most of her essay while failing to mention water."
The stated grading criteria for the essay were very unlike "what is the age of this rock?".
It was "are bullied girls more likely to be tomboys" and the woman used it to rant against the woke gender agenda.
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