The First Amendment Can’t Get You Out of Following Class Instructions
A failing grade for not understanding the assignment isn't a constitutional crisis.
By Shalise Manza Young
What initially appeared to be typical far-right-wing whining about religious persecution might instead be a new battlefield in the never-ending Christian nationalist war against trans women.
Mel Curth, a graduate student and instructor in the University of Oklahoma’s psychology department, gave one of her students 0 out of 25 possible points on a 650-word essay assignment meant to show that students had read the selected academic paper investigating “Relations Among Gender Typicality, Peer Relations, and Mental Health During Early Adolescence” and provide a “thoughtful reaction.”
Junior Samantha Fulnecky submitted a 742-word screed about the Bible, men being men and women being women, and the notion of multiple genders being “demonic.”
Naturally, when she received a failing grade, Fulnecky didn’t seem to reflect on whether her paper actually met any of the evaluation criteria. Instead, she ran to the school to cry discrimination and a violation of her First Amendment rights.
And naturally it was Curth, a trans woman who was awarded for excellence in teaching by her own department in early November, who was put on leave and who is now Enemy No. 1 among those who wear “What would Jesus do?” bracelets and then do the exact opposite.
Given that Fulnecky emailed Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, is getting support from her campus’s Turning Point USA chapter (the Charlie Kirk-founded group notorious for its professor watchlist targeting those who teach whatever it deems “woke”), and that her mother, Kristi, is an attorney who called Jan. 6 Capitol rioters she represented “domestic political prisoners,” it’s hard not to smell a Riley Gaines-type “omg a trans woman’s existence harmed me” publicity stunt.
OU’s TPUSA group posted, “We should not be letting mentally ill professors around students.” It’s another step in the Project 2025 Christian nationalist goal of essentially eradicating trans people, but especially trans women, from society, after getting the support of the president to keep trans girls and women out of sports.
To be clear, Samantha Fulnecky’s essay is objectively terrible and a hot mess. I’d be disappointed if my fifth grader submitted it, let alone my own college-attending child.
Beyond that, it seemingly has no connection to the article students were supposed to read, one of the three areas of evaluation set forth by Curth. The 20-page study, published a decade ago in the journal Social Development, makes no mention of transgender children or trans identity; it instead looks at gender “typical” and “atypical” behavior in early adolescence, how children are perceived and treated by peers, and whether poor treatment, such as teasing and bullying, of gender atypical children negatively influences their mental health.
Fulnecky’s paper is an opinion piece with no citations. She mentions God saying it is not good for a man to be alone in the Bible’s book of Genesis, but there isn’t even a notation on which chapter and verse the statement is pulled from, let alone any kind of academic or scientific work that might support her thoughts.
It’s just the standard anti-LGBTQ bigotry we’ve come to expect from the MAGA set.
Though she later declared she doesn’t want kids to be bullied in school, Fulnecky wrote in the first paragraph of her essay, “The article discussed peers using teasing as a way to enforce gender norms. I do not necessarily see this as a problem.”
She also claimed, “I do not think men and women are pressured to be more masculine or feminine.”
You cannot argue that it’s OK for peers to “tease” other children for not conforming to made-up gender norms only to later argue that men and women are not pressured to be more masculine or feminine.
Her last sentence—“I pray that they feel God’s love and acceptance as who He originally created them to be”—is another overused cudgel. A Pew Research poll of nearly 4,000 LGBTQ adults earlier this year found that 71% knew they were gay and 58% knew they were trans by age 14.
If, as Fulnecky asserts, God created those people, and they knew in early adolescence that they were gay and/or trans, doesn’t it stand to reason they were created that way?
Curth offered Fulnecky a detailed, thoughtful explanation of why she gave the paper a zero, seemingly going out of her way to emphasize that it wasn’t the student’s opinion that led to the failing grade.
“Please note that I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs, but instead I am deducting points for you posting a reaction paper that 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,” Curth wrote.
A second instructor for the course, Megan Waldron, concurred with Curth’s grade in her assessment of the essay, but she has not faced any disciplinary action or outcry from right-wing accounts.
A statement from OU acknowledges “concerns” over First Amendment rights, but it feels as if we are sliding into even more dangerous territory. Though, of course, there is some subjectivity in many academic areas, the First Amendment does not protect wrong answers on class assignments. Could a math student answer “8” to the question “9x=63, solve for x” and cry “but, but the First Amendment!” when it’s marked wrong? That would have a chilling effect on teachers and professors who would fear for their jobs (or, in the case of some who have been targeted by the professor watchlist, their lives) if they don’t give all the white Christian students perfect scores.
Mel Curth did nothing wrong. We must stand in support of her and all trans people—not just because it is the right thing to do, but because this is always how apartheid authoritarianism begins: demonize the smallest “out” group, and when that’s acceptable, you move to the next smallest group and so on and so on.
In other words, today it’s Mel Curth, but without resistance it won’t be long until colleges and universities are little more than high-cost disinformation factories handing out participation diplomas to the next generation of special snowflakes.
Shalise Manza Young was most recently a columnist at Yahoo Sports, focusing on the intersection of race, gender and culture in sports. The Associated Press Sports Editors named her one of the 10 best columnists in the country in 2020. She has also written for the Boston Globe and Providence Journal. Find her on Bluesky @shalisemyoung.
The last time I looked the University of Oklahoma was a public institution, operating under state law. If the student who submitted that poor excuse for an academic paper wants the prestige of a diploma from a state institution, she should follow the guidelines of her instructors and professors to do the work as it's assigned, meeting the specified requirements for completing assignments. If the student is not prepared to do that, I'm sure she could find a private college that meets her needs for academic mediocrity, where she may be able to spew all she wants about what she thinks the Bible says.
This is a great example of hampering academic freedom and denying respect for educators. I have seen this enacted by partisans across the political spectrum. It is wrong no matter who is involved.