About that Oklahoma Student who wrote the "trans" paper and got an F

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According to photos shared by a Turning Point USA chapter, the assignment was graded as follows: “1) Does the paper show a clear tie-in to the assigned article? (10 points), 2) Does the paper present a thoughtful reaction or response to the article, rather than a summary? (10 points), 3) Is the paper clearly written? (5 points)”

Admittedly, these are low standards — yet, if I may play pretend as an instructor, the student didn’t meet them. Her reaction paper, which was shared by a Turning Point USA chapter and can be read here, did not follow the guidelines. Fulnecky writes that “the article discussed peers using teasing as a way to enforce gender norms,” which merely describes the general topic of the assigned reading; she does not clarify what stance(s) the authors defended, leaving a teacher to wonder if she understood the reading. Instead of engaging directly with the assigned material, Fulnecky segued into a rambling discussion of God’s design for men and women. She seems to disagree with the progressive notion of “gender,” but unfortunately, the paper is so terribly written that it is difficult to discern what she is attempting to argue. Her implicit thesis is something along the lines of “men and women were created as distinct categories,” and most of Fulnecky’s sentences present some variation of “this thing happens because of God and therefore is good.” (She doesn’t cite specific Bible passages.)

Somewhat ironically, the prose and reasoning are so poor that she inadvertently makes claims that could be construed as endorsing transgenderism. For instance, she wrote that “women naturally want to do womanly things because God created us with those womanly desires in our hearts.” Putting aside the vagueness of “womanly things” and the circular logic, Fulnecky is just a short step away from the activists’ argument that “someone who feels like a woman is therefore a woman.” If I were the teacher, I would either give the paper a zero, or maybe I would award a few points if it followed the formatting guidelines and was submitted by the deadline.

And Fulnecky did receive a zero — but possibly for the wrong reasons. Curth’s evaluation, also shared online by the Turning Point USA chapter, begins by insisting that the bad score has nothing to do with Fulnecky expressing “certain beliefs.” Instead, Curth claims the grade is warranted because the essay is internally contradictory, relies on personal ideology rather than empirical evidence, and ignores the questions posed in the assignment. But then, Curth notes that Fulnecky’s paper “is at times offensive,” and he further warns against making “highly offensive” comments about “minoritized groups.” Couple these remarks with the information that Curth likes to be referred to with “she” or “they,” and there are reasons to suspect Fulnecky might have been uniquely punished for expressing right-leaning views.

An entertaining but unaddressed irony in this debacle is that, while Curth is right that Fulnecky’s paper is a mess, Curth’s prose is also unintelligible. .....

Fulnecky wrote a bad essay that got a bad grade, but the justification supplied for that grade seems to hint at political, religious, or ideological discrimination rather than academic standards to measure a paper’s quality. Honestly, I wonder if a paper nearly identical to Fulnecky’s that instead draws from “indigenous knowledge” would get the same grade — and that’s ultimately the crux of the issue. There is only one relevant question that must be asked during the University of Oklahoma’s investigation of this incident: Did the instructor give out zeroes to other bad papers that did not defend a right-leaning or Christian view? If Curth also gave failing grades to equally lousy papers that either advocated for progressive views or had no discernible political leanings, then Fulnecky wouldn’t have legitimate grounds to claim she is a victim of discrimination....

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