In November 2025, a controversy arose surrounding a failing grade given to University of Oklahoma psychology student Samantha Fulnecky's essay, which she characterized as an example of religious discrimination.
Fulnecky was enrolled in psychology class entitled "Lifespan Development" in which students were assigned to write a 650-word essay responding to a research paper. The paper, "Relations Among Gender Typicality, Peer Relations, and Mental Health During Early Adolescence", is a study about the effect of gender norms on the mental health of middle schoolers. The course instructor gave Fulnecky a failing grade of 0 out of 25, saying she had failed to respond to the prompt or cite any empirical evidence and described parts of the essay as offensive. Fulnecky's essay had referred to the Bible to call social acceptance of transgender people "demonic". The instructor was transgendergraduate teaching assistant Mel Curth.
Fulnecky subsequently filed a claim of religious discrimination based on her Christian faith, which was amplified by Turning Point USA (TPUSA). The supervising professor, who was cisgender, was asked to grade the paper again and also gave it a failing grade. On November 30, 2025, the course instructor was placed on administrative leave.
The course instructor is Mel Curth, a graduate student and trans woman teaching psychology at the university.[3] Curth had previously received an award from the psychology department for outstanding teaching.[4][2] Curth has retained legal counsel regarding the incident.[5]
Turning Point USA is a right-wing nonprofit organization which maintains a "Professor Watchlist" tool which encourages students to report educators who "advance leftist propaganda".[1][4][3] Anti-transgender conservatives have been waging a years-long campaign to ban transgender people from working as teachers, and to ban the teaching of LGBTQ-friendly material more broadly. The second Trump administration conducted a wider campaign against transgender people, with dozens of professors across the country being fired or disciplined, and schools and universities being told they would lose federal funding if they did not adopt anti-trans policies.[4][6][7]
Incident
In November 2025, Fulnecky was assigned a reflective essay on an article published in the journal Social Development.[3] The article details a study in which children reported the gender typicality (contrast to gender atypicality) and popularity of their peers. The researchers found that gender typicality was correlated with popularity.[8] The assignment asked students to provide "a thoughtful reaction to the material presented in the article" and offered various starting points for writing the reflection, based on the study's procedure, results, or interpretations.[9] Essays were graded on a 25-point scale based on clarity of writing (5 points), connection to the assigned article (10 points), and presenting a thoughtful reaction rather than a summary (10 points). A minimum word count of 650 was required, with a 10-point deduction for submissions between 620 and 649 words.[10]
Fulnecky's 630-word submission, which fell short of the 650-word requirement,[10] diverged from empirical research, instead framing gender roles through a religious lens. She argued that "Women naturally want to do womanly things because God created us with those womanly desires in our hearts. The same goes for men," and that innate desires, not social norms, influence gender conformity in women, citing unquoted Bible passages without specific citations or context.[11] Fulnecky further accused her classmates of being "cowardly and insincere" for their acceptance of progressive views on gender, and said that society was "demonic" for supporting transgender people.[12][3][1][7]
In grading the paper, Curth emphasized in feedback comments that the failing grade Fulnecky received was not based on her personal beliefs, but because the paper "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". A second instructor subsequently assessed the paper, and left comments agreeing with Curth's assessment, saying that the paper "should not be considered as a completion of the assignment".[3][1][7] Fulnecky then filed a complaint of discrimination based on religious beliefs, leading Curth to be placed on administrative leave and the second instructor being removed from the class.[13]
Both the essay and the comments were subsequently posted online by the university TPUSA chapter, who stated that "We at Turning Point OU stand with Samantha. We should not be letting mentally ill professors around students", gaining 40 million views in less than a week.[6] Following TPUSA's post, the incident received national attention.[3]
Reactions
University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma put out statements in response, saying that Curth had been put on administrative leave, and that the assignment would not be counted towards Fulnecky's final grade.[14]
The graduate student senate passed a bill which called for "increased transparency" around the administrative leave policy and additional protections for graduate teaching assistants who are investigated, and expressed concern regarding harassment and online comments made towards Curth.[15]
A rally on campus calling for Curth's reinstatement was attended by hundreds, including students, faculty, and alumni.[16] The university removed another instructor who had excused their students to attend the protests, as it had determined that the instructor had not extended that opportunity to students wishing to demonstrate in support of an opposing view.[17][18]
Politicians
Republican Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt said "The situation at OU is deeply concerning. I'm calling on the OU regents to review the results of the investigation & ensure other students aren't unfairly penalized for their beliefs".[7]
Ryan Walters, who served as the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction from January 2023 to September 2025, referred to Fulnecky as "an American hero", writing: "She stood firm in her faith despite the radical attacks from the Marxist professors at the University of Oklahoma. The OU staff involved should be immediately fired and OU should not be receiving taxpayer dollars if they continue their assaults on faith. The war on Christianity is real, and we will not be silenced."[3]
Oklahoma state representative Gabe Woolley presented Fulnecky with "citation of recognition" from his office during a meeting of the Original Constitutional Principles Affecting Culture, also known as OCPAC.[13] State senator Shane Jett, the head of the Oklahoma Freedom Caucus, called for a legislative audit of "ideological bias in curriculum, grading, and hiring" and cuts to public university funding "until free speech is 'verifiably protected.'"[19]
Activists
Canadian anti-trans activist Billboard Chris responded by saying that being transgender should result in a person being "automatically disqualified from holding any position as teacher or professor", to which Fulnecky's mother agreed, saying that she was proud of her daughter.[2]
Media
The Oklahoman first reported on Fulnecky's essay controversy on November 25, and other outlets nationally followed.[13] Sara Pequeño, writing for USA Today, argued that Fulnecky deserved the failing grade due to the fact that she only cited the Bible: "it is my understanding that you must apply scientific evidence to homework assignments in science class, and arguing that you don't have to because the phrase 'empirical evidence' doesn't appear in your writing assignment is a technicality at best."[20] Pequeño also accused Fulnecky's defenders of hypocrisy, saying that "for all their yelling about... people receiving accolades they don't deserve, conservatives will get all up in arms over a college student's poorly written essay."[20] Conservative academic Richard Hanania commented on social media that "you have to pass students who only cite religious faith for their opinions now or they're victims of discrimination".[6]New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose wrote about how the incident had become a cause célèbre for the political right.[21] In an op-ed for The Advocate, Ryan Adamczeski compared Fulnecky to conservative activist Riley Gaines, stating: "It is a grift taking advantage of the easiest way to become famous today, and it is a grift built off the modern conservative movement's platform of entitlement and weaponization of religion."[22]
Emma Pettiti with The Chronicle of Higher Education interviewed two professors who both argued Fulnecky's assignment should not have received a zero under the rubric they had seen. Professor Regan Gurung of Oregon State University said he did not think the response demonstrated a "clear tie-in" to the assigned reading, but did not deserve a zero. Professor Megan T. Stevenson of the University of Virginia argued Fulnecky's writing "is not that bad" and noted "there's a lot of bad writing out there."[23]
↑Rissman, Kelly (December 2, 2025). "Oklahoma student failed paper. Now Turning Point USA is involved". The Independent. Retrieved December 3, 2025. The reason so many girls want to feel womanly and care for others in a motherly way is not because they feel pressured to fit into social norms. It is because God created and chose them to reflect His beauty and His compassion in that way
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