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Notes -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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