The University of Oklahoma is the latest school to debase itself in deference to Donald Trump and evangelical Christians’ false claims of religious persecution. Trump and white evangelicals have this in common: Both claim persecution when they are instead the persecutors.
By now you’ve probably heard the story of OU junior Samantha Fulnecky, who claimed religious discrimination after receiving a zero on an assignment in a psychology course taught by a transgender graduate assistant. Several BNG columnists have reviewed the situation and agreed the student deserved a failing grade because she did not do the assigned work.
Mark Wingfield
But rather than learning from her mistakes, Fulnecky and her evangelical activist mother deflected from her poor academic performance and scapegoated the graduate assistant — likely easier for them to do since the teacher is transgender and evangelicals hate transgender people.
OU immediately suspended the teacher pending an investigation, which now is complete but not completely public. The outcome: The student had the bad grade removed from her record and the teacher was removed from the classroom.
“The provost and academic dean ditched academic principles and caved in to the fears of evangelical crybabies.”
In short: The provost and academic dean ditched academic principles and caved in to the fears of evangelical crybabies — no doubt realizing this could escalate to an all-out war with the White House like other schools have experienced this year.
The administrators involved are Michael Markham, dean of OU’s Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences since July, and André-Denis Wright, provost since 2021.
Having reviewed the situation, these administrators took the side of a whiny student and sullied their university’s reputation in the larger academic community. “Based on an examination of the graduate teaching assistant’s prior grading standards and patterns, as well as the graduate teaching assistant’s own statements related to this matter, it was determined that the graduate teaching assistant was arbitrary in the grading of this specific paper,” they said.
Again, other academics who have read the assignment and the student’s paper said she deserved a failing grade. The provost and dean have given no evidence of how the teacher was “arbitrary in the grading of this specific paper.” That would be interesting to know.
Further, they conducted an internal investigation about the student’s claim of religious discrimination but refused to release the results of that investigation.
What good can result from withholding the results of that investigation? Other than protecting themselves from further scrutiny.
Even if the administrators did not find religious discrimination, their silence leaves the impression that they believed the student’s claim.
Had Samantha Fulnecky been a Baháʼí or a Mormon or a Muslim or a Buddhist, we can imagine the outcome of this investigation would have been different in Oklahoma. These minority faiths face real persecution, not conservative evangelicals.
The administrators’ statement includes this zinger: “The University of Oklahoma believes strongly in both its faculty’s rights to teach with academic freedom and integrity and its students’ right to receive an education that is free from a lecturer’s impermissible evaluative standards. We are committed to teaching students how to think, not what to think.”
“Until this year, we did not think top-ranked universities could be manipulated by conservatives. But we were wrong.”
Where is the evidence of the lecturer’s “impermissible evaluative standards”? It’s certainly not found in Fulnecky’s failing grade. And where is the desire to help Fulnecky learn “how to think” beyond her own narrow and hateful biases?
Until this year, we did not think top-ranked universities could be manipulated by conservatives. But we were wrong. This is the Trump Era of conservative bullying and threats.
OU now joins the ranks of Columbia, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia in sacrificing academic freedom through the modern version of “Let’s Make a Deal.”
Of course, this news from OU comes three days before Christmas, with students and faculty all scattered to the winds and unable to protest the administration. Yet there will be a price to be paid in the future as faculty now live in fear of the same thing happening to them when a helicopter parent campaigns against their child’s bad grade or an evangelical student refuses to learn and blames the professor.
OU has joined a Hall of Shame it should not have applied for membership in.
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He grew up 7 miles from the OU campus but never was a student there.
Related articles:
How a college assignment became the latest battle in the culture wars | Analysis by Josh Olds
I believe: OU, faith and the academy | Opinion by Greg Garrett