How a college assignment became the latest battle in the culture wars

In 2014, psychologists Jennifer Jewell and Christia Spears Brown published a study in social development titled “Relations Among Gender Typicality, Peer Relations, and Mental Health During Early Adolescence.” Eleven years later, OU psychology student Samantha Fulnecky penned a two-page assignment reacting to that journal article.

And that, in summary, is how a 25-point college assignment became the latest battle in the culture wars.

According to the assignment instructions, Fulnecky was to write “a thoughtful discussion of some aspect of the article.” Graduate instructor Mel Curth believed she did not do so, grading her paper a 0 out of 25 and commenting that it “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.”

Fulnecky protested the grade and filed a claim of illegal discrimination based on religious belief, arguing the score was due to her citing the Bible. In the essay, she wrote that “God made male and female and made us differently from each other on purpose and for a purpose.” She further argued that children should follow gender stereotypes because “that is how God made us,” and concluded that “society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders … is demonic,” praying children would not believe “lies being spread from Satan.”

Leaving aside that the reflection veers between defending traditional gender roles and defending a strict gender binary, it also suggests it is “not necessarily a problem” if students are teased as a method of enforcing gender norms.

But what does the article actually claim?

Nowhere in their research do Jewell and Brown discuss transgender identity, nonbinary identity, gender transition, pronouns or anything adjacent to contemporary culture-war debates. Rather, their focus is gender typicality — how closely a child’s visible behavior matches peer expectations.

They note, for example, that boys who are not athletic face “harsher repercussions from their peers,” and that adolescents often view teasing as a “legitimate way of regulating behavior they viewed as deviant or weird.”

These patterns describe in-group policing of gender stereotypes, not questions of gender identity. Nothing in the methodology or findings touches on gender identity labels, gender transitions, or even an internal sense of gender. Jewell and Brown’s article is about how enforcing gender stereotypes negatively impacts mental health.

Crucially, Jewell and Brown find such negative impact comes not from atypical behavior itself but from how peers respond to it. They write: “Negative mental health may not be due to being atypical, but being teased for it.” Gender-based teasing predicts embarrassment, poor body image, difficulty concentrating and avoidance of school. In contrast, school environments that allow students to “express themselves regardless of gender stereotypes” show fewer harmful outcomes. In short, the research frames diverse gender expression as common and nonpathological, while identifying peer policing of gender norms as the real driver of harm.

How Fulnecky responded

Fulnecky’s reflection misreads the article by assuming it is about transgender or nonbinary ideology, when in fact the article does not address those topics at all. Terms like “gender atypicality” refer to children liking nonstereotypical activities — boys who enjoy art, girls who prefer sports (and this is where we should note that Fulnecky is a member of OU’s women’s tennis team) — not to children questioning their gender. The reflection attributes views to the article the authors never express.

“The reflection attributes views to the article the authors never express.”

Another misunderstanding arises when the reflection frames the article as advocating for “eliminating gender.” The study does not argue this. Its only claim is that children fare better when they are not punished for liking activities outside traditional stereotypes. Affirming that a boy can enjoy reading instead of football or that a girl can prefer science to dance is not a call to abolish gender. It is a call to stop harming children for being themselves.

Fulnecky also denies the article’s central finding that gender-based teasing harms children, writing that teasing “is not necessarily a problem” and suggesting men and women are not pressured to conform. This contradicts the research directly, which links teasing to anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, negative body image and school avoidance. Dismissing these data because they conflict with personal ideology is not an academic critique — it is a refusal to understand or engage the material.

In short, Fulnecky’s reflection on Jewell and Brown’s article is not actually a reflection or reaction to the article. She does not meaningfully engage the article’s variables, data or methodology. She misunderstands its central premise and contradicts without rationale its central conclusion.

Instead of analyzing the study, Fulnecky critiques an ideological position unrelated to the article’s content. She reacted to an imagined version of the article, not the research in front of her. And that is the larger issue.

The larger issue

Increasingly, academic research is being pulled into political narratives by readers who approach education not with curiosity but suspicion — looking for either an affirmation of their beliefs or a way to espouse their beliefs rather than actually responding to the evidence. When empirical findings are reframed as ideological attacks, scholarship becomes collateral damage in a broader cultural fight.

One of the biggest defenses of Fulnecky’s work is that it wasn’t meant to be an empirically based response. Kristi Fulnecky — Samantha’s mother and a lawyer who has represented January 6 insurrectionists — has stated multiple times that the paper was to be “an opinion-based essay. No evidence required.” Samantha has called it a violation of her First Amendment rights, saying she is being “clearly discriminated against for … using freedom of speech.” Fulnecky’s defenders say she has a right to her opinion and the right to express that opinion — but also that her opinion should be validated with a good grade.

Jewell and Brown studied how teasing harms children. Fulnecky turned that into an argument about gender ideology, political expression, and spiritual warfare. In doing so, she not only misrepresented the research but missed its urgency: Children suffer when we police their behavior into narrow boxes. The call of this study is simple: Our kids deserve safer, kinder communities than the ones enforced by shame.

“Our kids deserve safer, kinder communities than the ones enforced by shame.”

And that should concern all of us, regardless of political or theological commitments. Christians, conservative evangelicals in particular, often speak about the importance of protecting children, nurturing them and helping them grow into the fulness of who God created them to be. Yet too often, we mistake stereotype policing for moral formation. We confuse cultural stereotypes with biblical truth. We allow teasing, exclusion or rigid gender expectations to masquerade as “God’s design,” even when such practices demonstrably harm the very children we claim to care for.

Ultimately, Fulnecky’s reflections are a study in conservative hypocrisy. She herself, by the guidelines of Jewell and Brown’s article, is gender atypical by being a student-athlete. She exhibits atypical conservative Christian gender norms by attending a secular university. Her mother, in her role as an attorney, is subverting traditional Christian gender norms by working outside the home. In her own reflection, she subverts those norms by advocating for egalitarianism in the home. And she writes that individuals who express gender atypicality should have their freedom of expression stifled through bullying but then complains when she feels like her own freedom of expression was stifled.

It’s important to note Fulnecky’s First Amendment rights to express herself freely never should be in question. Her paper has been the most scrutinized and read 2000-level psychology assignment in human history. Her problem is not with a lack of free expression but a lack of validation and agreement. And she has taken to the bully pulpit of political connections and media to force that validation.

Fulnecky’s response does not merely misunderstand Jewell and Brown’s findings; it reinforces the very harm the researchers documented. And this is not an isolated misreading but a textbook example of a broader pattern within contemporary conservative ideology, where empirical questions are routinely reframed as theological battles or moral panics.

Instead of engaging the study’s clear evidence that shame and teasing damage children, Fulnecky substitutes an entirely different issue: Gender panic and culture-war rhetoric.

By shifting the conversation away from the well-being of children and toward a manufactured ideological threat, she protects the systems of ridicule and social pressure the article identifies as harmful. In the end, Fulnecky’s reaction doesn’t just miss the point, it becomes part of the problem by perpetuating the very patterns of bullying and coercion she insists are acceptable for others while demanding validation for herself.

 

Josh Olds is a public theologian and pastor for those disillusioned with institutional church. He is the creator of the forthcoming small-group video series “Year on the Mountaintop” and a featured contributor to Fostering Hope: A Prayerbook for Fostering and Adoptive Parents. Follow his work on Facebook or at JoshOlds.com.