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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   22038 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 22, 2025

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The University of Oklahoma has reached a resolution regarding a student's claim of religious discrimination. University of Oklahoma junior Samantha Fulnecky received a 0/25 on a psychology essay in which she responded to an assigned article about gender norms with arguments based largely on her Christian beliefs and references to the Bible. Her trans instructor said the paper failed to meet the assignment criteria, did not engage with the source material or empirical evidence, and described parts of it as offensive. Fulnecky filed an appeal and a complaint claiming religious discrimination.

A post about the situation was made here a few weeks ago.

OU conducted a review and concluded the grading was “arbitrary.” They ruled that the failing grade would not count toward Fulnecky’s final course grade and the graduate instructor who graded the paper was placed on administrative leave and removed from instructional duties. This claim was also reviewed by the Provost who agreed with the ruling.

The online reaction isn't surprising, and it serves as another example of a litmus test that the progressive left has failed. I will say in the reactionaries' defense that the paper is not well-written, so at first glance anyone who reads it will think, "Yeah, that's a shit paper and a zero is well deserved." Once you dig beneath the surface though, that explanation collapses. It looks more like poorly written papers were routinely given full credit throughout the semester, which establishes that writing quality was not exactly being enforced as a decisive standard. Multiple Reddit threads are slamming OUs integrity or making comments about how they shouldcrowd fund attorneys. Of course almost all of them intentionally avoid the central point which is that the grading was clearly inconsistent. Once that's established, the additional CW context becomes relevant. A trans instructor giving a zero grade to a paper critical of gender ideology doesn’t prove bias, but let's be real here.

This whole thing is depressing. Writing like that should practically get you removed from a liberal arts course. The student admitted in interviews that she never read the article.

None of that matters to any outcomes here and it's depressing. The University can't, in good faith, defend giving a zero to a paper that deserves a "come see me in office hours."

This is the best evidence I've seen so far that the University system needs to be torn down.

It is depressing. The student really does need a rap over the knuckles for "the assignment was read the paper, you never read the paper". But giving zero for a topic that is relevant to the tutor/TA/whatever the position, is also going to look like bias. If, as claimed, other students have turned in equally crappy papers and not gotten zero grades, then it is unjustified. But I do think the student wants to be a martyr and now she has achieved her fifteen minutes of fame for "they persecuted me for being a Christian".

But to quote St. Clement of Alexandria, rashly running out to be persecuted is not true martyrdom, it is vainglory:

Now we, too, say that those who have rushed on death (for there are some, not belonging to us, but sharing the name merely, who are in haste to give themselves up, the poor wretches dying through hatred to the Creator )— these, we say, banish themselves without being martyrs, even though they are punished publicly. For they do not preserve the characteristic mark of believing martyrdom, inasmuch as they have not known the only true God, but give themselves up to a vain death, as the Gymnosophists of the Indians to useless fire.

...When, again, He says, When they persecute you in this city, flee to the other, He does not advise flight, as if persecution were an evil thing; nor does He enjoin them by flight to avoid death, as if in dread of it, but wishes us neither to be the authors nor abettors of any evil to any one, either to ourselves or the persecutor and murderer. For He, in a way, bids us take care of ourselves. But he who disobeys is rash and foolhardy. If he who kills a man of God sins against God, he also who presents himself before the judgment-seat becomes guilty of his death. And such is also the case with him who does not avoid persecution, but out of daring presents himself for capture. Such a one, as far as in him lies, becomes an accomplice in the crime of the persecutor. And if he also uses provocation, he is wholly guilty, challenging the wild beast. And similarly, if he afford any cause for conflict or punishment, or retribution or enmity, he gives occasion for persecution. Wherefore, then, we are enjoined not to cling to anything that belongs to this life; but to him that takes our cloak to give our coat, not only that we may continue destitute of inordinate affection, but that we may not by retaliating make our persecutors savage against ourselves, and stir them up to blaspheme the name.

So, deliberately provoking the university authorities is not standing up for your principles, it is causing them to offend.

She didn't want to be a martyr, the whole thing is a staged political stunt to get the TPUSA more influence. I daresay I have a better insight into the priorities of the politically active core red tribe in the south central United States than the average motteizean; the TPUSA is a big part of their 'theory of victory' and this kind of stunt is exactly what somebody trying to exploit it would dream up- and some state legislators were peripherally involved, but involved enough to be an implied threat.

Her mother is Kristi Fulnecky, a former (municipal) politician, and a lawyer in activist circles. And, IIRC from the Blocked and Reported episode on this, the student said her mother told her who to contact regarding getting a resolution, and it wasn’t just the official channels within the University. I believe it was her mother that looped in the state legislators.

This whole thing is depressing. Writing like that should practically get you removed from a liberal arts course. The student admitted in interviews that she never read the article.

The issue is that this is the level of the writing that other students have successfully coerced universities into giving high grades to over the last 30 years. If she had just done a woke AI slop essay with no citations she gets a solid 9/10 or whatever. So the "standards" argument is completely specious.

It's amazing university endured for any length of time as a useful signal in the first place.

If you told me your business was to give paying customers certificates for good grades that they need to get good jobs and denying these certificates for bad grades causes paying customers to get mad, well we all know what's going to happen.

If running universities as businesses creates problematic incentives, maybe it could be a good idea not to run universities as businesses. I'm not super familiar with the history of how universities are organised, but universities are older than capitalism, so at least at some point they must have been run in a different fashion.

The oldest institutions that are currently universities were originally founded by churches (many by the Roman Catholic church, but others also). But aside from the regalia they mostly don't actually resemble the way they looked then.

There are a few very old Islamic universities who are a lot closer to what they looked like in the past. but probably not a useful model for western reformers. Although they haven't learned standards because their goal is to turn out learned Islamic scholars rather than provide consumers a degree. So maybe there is a lesson there.

The fact that it's specious is what makes the whole affair depressing.

As the OP from last time, I think after all the discussion my view has settled alongside yours. This case represents a failure on multiple levels and puts serious egg on OUs face. I don't blame them for acting swiftly and I think canning the instructor, while perhaps disproportionate, was advantageous for them optics-wise instead of admitting their academic standards have withered into dust. Especially as their funding is controlled by a Red legislature and Red constituents.

It goes without saying that Fulnecky is not a figure that I think should be venerated in any regard, much less as a martyr. As you said, recent interviews have been quite revealing. She happened to submit a garbage paper to an overzealous instructor and capitalized as she saw fit.

Eh, you're hypothetically in a liberal arts course to learn how to write better.

Seems to me that the paper deserved a D (it engaged at least tangentially with the idea of the assignment, and she didn't turn in a drool stained piece of A2...) I really do think that if the TA had indeed given it a 60 and a "see me after class" Fulnecky wouldn't have had a leg to stand on .

Very much agreed with your latter point, it would've saved everyone involved a whole lot of trouble.

The online reaction isn't surprising, and it serves as another example of a litmus test that the progressive left has failed.

Once again I’m reminding you that this is the university of Oklahoma and the student in question is backed by the local TPUSA chapter.

Samantha Fulnecky could be supported by the Nazi party and it wouldn't change the facts surrounding the issue. The online crowd would focus on the Nazi part to gloss over the fact that their side is biased too.

Could you elaborate?

The university was well aware of the implied political pressure on them to be maximally accommodating to conservative Christians. They might not want to, but they're run by the state government of the reddest state in the country, and they know it. Oklahoma is the US capital of social conservatism in actual legislation, and OU isn't exactly a tier one research school(although it's a football powerhouse) so the consequences for 'not rolling over' are being forced to anyways. This isn't the university of Texas where legitimate academic programs are strongly valued by major private industries over competitors or a UC school where the state government wants them to do this- they have no protection.

This just makes the university appear less competent than they already did. IF the university was aware of the political pressure they would've presumably passed that down to their TAs and/or kept their TAs on a shorter leash which they clearly did not.

Whether OU is a tier 1 research institution or a tier 9 is not relevant to the matter at hand.

OU isn't exactly a tier one research school(although it's a football powerhouse)

What's this "research" you speak of? Is it some niche sport colleges play in between the football and basketball seasons?

Some truth is said in jest—for better or worse, I'm actually not convinced research output matters as much as sportsball-prestige when it comes to a university's political bargaining power.

Basketball is, in Oklahoma, a sport considered roughly as important as curling, and which exists largely to pass the time between the superbowl and the beginning of baseball season. The core red tribe thinks of basketball as an amateur game and does not follow the NBA, sometimes with an excuse of 'too many games'- seeing college basketball as akin to track and field or archery or something- a sport which nobody actually cares about, but which a respectable athletics program will maintain anyways just for the sake of it.

The existence of highly ranked research departments gives the university of Texas- and a small number of other red state universities- some insulation from political pressure to the extent that that research(mostly geology in the case of the university of Texas, for obvious reasons) is extremely valuable to private sector industry.

Occasionally I'm reminded that so much of the red tribe anthropology on here has the quality of European explorers confidently reporting the customs of Amazon tribes.

This isn't new- see 'Body Ritual of the Nacirema'.

I think the claim here is that red state public universities might lean left, but they're ultimately responsible to red state government in ways that prevent them from going full blue partisan, lest the legislature take away their toys funding, or the governor replace their board of trustees. Just because this could happen in Oklahoma doesn't mean the vibe in, say, UC schools or the Ivy League has changed.

The humanities are inherently biased. The instructor needs discretion to assign whatever grade they see fit on an assignment. Maybe other people submitted bad papers, but in that TA's estimation, those papers weren't as bad as the one that got a zero. Which makes sense, if they thought the paper was both low quality and morally reprehensible. If a Muslim student submitted a paper arguing for all infidels to be unalived, the grader should be allowed to be morally outraged and give a 0%. That's free speech for both parties - the student is allowed to say whatever they want in their paper, and the TA is free to evaluate the paper honestly.

  • -15

I don't really want to tone police and maybe this fails the building consensus rule but for the love of god can we avoid writing "unalived" and "graped" like tiktok retards?

Even then, it deserves a 40% for having been turned in.

If a Muslim student submitted a paper arguing for all infidels to be unalived, the grader should be allowed to be morally outraged and give a 0%.

But that isn't the equivalent of what she wrote. She expressed a moral disagreement. She rejected the framing. There are no calls for violence. If expressing the belief that “society pushes a lie that harms children” is grounds for moral outrage and a zero, then a huge portion of the country (including many professors and TAs) are equally guilty for regularly and openly expressing the inverse belief that people who hold conservative views are inherently harmful. That opinion has been tolerated, and quite frankly promoted, in academics for years.

That's free speech for both parties - the student is allowed to say whatever they want in their paper, and the TA is free to evaluate the paper honestly.

Yeah, the TA isn't going to go to jail. They're just going to be removed from their position for inconsistent grading practices.

Freedom of speech means that the government can't put you in jail for your speech. It doesn't mean your employer can't fire you if the speech you make while representing them as part of your job is damaging to the institution.

If a PR spokesperson for a grocery store dropped an N-bomb on national TV and triggered a political backlash, their employer would have every right to fire them on the spot, freedom of speech or no. Freedom of speech is not the right to keep your job in spite of gross incompetence.

Maybe you are of a liberal persuasion, but it is very funny seeing the siren song/rallying cry of cancel culture

"Erm, freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences sweaty 💅"

Small quibble. Freedom of speech is indeed the right to keep your job in spite of your speech. The first amendment just doesn't guarantee that right. Freedom of speech is an ideal that needs to be balanced with other ideals, in this case freedom of association. If freedom of speech was our only master we would indeed insist that no one be fired for what they say on the job. I only say this because people tend to conflate freedom of speech with the first amendment. 1A is about the government and free speech is a larger idea than just your relationship with the state. When a platform like reddit or twitter bans you they are actually meaningfully reducing your ability to speak freely in violation of freedom of speech without violating 1A at all.

Your employer firing you because of your speech may very well be unobjectionable and on the net good, but it does violate freedom of speech.

No, the "1st Amendment" means the government can't put you in jail for what you say, but your employer can fire you. "Freedom of Speech" very much does mean that it's wrong for your employer to fire you for what you say, except in very narrow circumstances where it's clear you're attempting to speak on behalf of the company as a whole and your employer would rather you not.

I agree, but I'd argue that in this particular instance the instructor was speaking on behalf of the institution; grades are, after all, the university's official opinion of a student's work, and the instructor was being paid (among other things) to give them in a manner the university would agree with (that the university agrees with the marks is a necessity to make degrees actually mean something). This wasn't a case of a random shitpost on social media outside office hours.

"You can fire people for saying X if you hired them to say Y" is a small-enough impingement on free speech, and enough of a necessity, that I'm not really objecting on those grounds; I might or might not disagree on the object-level if I cared enough to dig into the case, but not on the meta-level.

The online reaction isn't surprising, and it serves as another example of a litmus test that the progressive left has failed.

Failed? This is but a small hiccup amidst decades of winning. I suppose when we're so accustomed to one side winning, even a minor stumble can feel like a crushing defeat.

It reminds me of sports highlight shitposts. "Progressives SCRAMBLE to inbound the ball after Conservatives sink a DAGGER two to cut the lead to 36!"

This is hardly "problem solved" for conservatives, anymore than killing one bed bug means you've solved your infestation problem. One such instructor down, who knows how many to go.

However, the outcome aligns well with what I wrote in that linked thread. Fulnecky's assignment submission was hardly some stroke of genius, but was far from deserving of a 0 given typical OU-tier university grading standards, especially in those types of courses, especially for those types of assignments. Someone whose grading rubric consists of idpol and feelings should not be grading at all.

A small hiccup with far reaching implications. The side that claims to be more objective and evidence based can't even adhere to its own standard.

Fulnecky isn't a genius, and I've never claimed she is. She's just an ordinary, average girl in an environment that now lends itself to these sorts of situations. It's an environment that now exposes how ideology quietly fills the space where consistent enforcement is supposed to be, and people don't like the current ideology that fills those spaces.

This is hardly "problem solved" for conservatives, anymore than killing one bed bug means you've solved your infestation problem. One such instructor down, who knows how many to go.

Sadly, I tend to agree with this. Going forward, who will have more fear in their hearts: (1) College students who wish to write papers criticizing progressive gender ideology; or (2) instructors who wish to give failing grades to such papers?

Seems to me it's pretty likely that this instructor will enjoy an improved chances of being given full time tenure track employment by some other university. Or will end up in some cushy research job at a Soros-funded NGO.

At the same time, most conservative college students will correctly realize that this student got very lucky by (1) having an instructor who was stupid enough to retaliate without a fig leaf of plausible deniability; and (2) having a university administration which was willing to be fair-minded about the situation.

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