December 3, 2025 • 27 mins
An University of Oklahoma student, Samantha Fulnecky, is going viral after receiving a "zero" on an assignment from a transgender instructor after citing the bible. Is she a victim of woke discrimination... or is it more complicated? I break it down in this episode of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I read that girl from Oklahoma. I read her essay
talk it's so bad.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
But the second that you correctly quote scripture in context
in that great length to push back against their work propaganda,
they give you a zero on an essay.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Another viral culture war controversy is tearing the Internet apart,
but this time I kind of think everyone is wrong.
We're going to break this down, plus so much more
on today's episode of the brad Versus Everyone podcast, my
(00:35):
daily show where we take on the craziest ideas from
across the Internet and social media, all from an independent
political perspective. Now, guys, we are going to talk about
a huge political story that's also an Internet story. It's
a trending topic and it comes from the University of
Oklahoma where a student cited the Bible and her religious
(00:57):
beliefs on an assignment for a psychology class and was
given a zero by a trans professor. And it's now
blown up across TikTok, dividing opinion but also reaching like
the highest levels of government, with the mainstream media, even
right wing media Fox News raising the alarm saying it's
this horrible story. Liberal media outlets saying the student deserved
(01:19):
a zero, and even the governor of Oklahoma has weighed in,
and even a lawsuit maybe on the horizon. So there
is so much to unpack to this story. And my
take is going to surprise you, I think, because I
kind of think everyone is wrong, though I guess that's
normal for me. But and do stick with me, because
first we're going to go through the facts of what happened.
Then I'm going to tell you what both sides are saying.
(01:42):
Then finally I'll give you my analysis without further ado.
Let's listen to this video recapping the story from the
state newspaper, The Oklahoma and let's watch.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
An Oklahoma college student says she got a zero on
her essay because she sited the Bible. Her instructor said
she didn't cite empirical data. Sonicki, a junior at OU
majoring in psychology, was assigned to read an article about
gender and pure relations and write a six hundred fifty
word reaction Fulnicki wrote, God made male and female and
made us differently on purpose. Eliminating gender would be detrimental
(02:13):
as it pulls us farther from God's original plan for humans.
Her instructor responded that she didn't use empirical evidence and
said parts of the essay, including her line calling multiple
gender's demonic, were offensive ful. Nicki said she believed she
was graded unfairly because of her religious beliefs. She emailed
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, OU President Joseph Harrows, and others
asking for help. She also filed a formal discrimination complaint
(02:35):
and asked for her grade to be reviewed. This week,
O You said it completed a review of the situation.
The university placed the graduate student instructor on administrative leave.
A full time professor will take over the class for
the rest of the semester. O You also said it
made sure full Nicki wouldn't face academic harm from the
original grade. In a statement, the university said it supports fairness, respect,
and every student's right to express their religious beliefs. Full
(02:58):
Nick's discrimination complaint is still being reviewed. Stid also weaited
on X, calling the situation deeply concerning and asking OU's
readers to look into it further. The case i sparked
a new conversation about free speech on Oklahoma college campuses,
especially when students cite religion in classwork. Ohu's investigation is
still ongoing. We'll continue to follow updates as they developed.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
So look, I appreciate the reporting from the oklahom and
there I feel like they gave a pretty good neutral
summary of the facts. I will get into more details
because for me, the details of this story really matter.
I came into it at face value, very skeptical of
you know, like radical transactivists and academics and professors, and
typically more sympathetic to people who say things like there
(03:39):
are two genders. But there's more to the story than that.
There's a lot more. But first, she is describing herself
essentially as a victim, this young student, and she is
not only filing a complaint saying that she is a
victim of religious discrimination, she has also done a media tour.
So for example, here's she is on Fox News discussing
(04:02):
her case.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
I was told to get my opinion on gender stereotypes
and gender norms, so that's what I did. I didn't
think that was me needing to be brave or have courage.
I thought I was just sharing my opinion like I
was asked to do. So that's what I did, And
I talked about the Bible and what God says about
gender norms and about how there are two genders and
(04:23):
things like that. And the response I got back was
a zero on that paper, and the TA saying that
my writing was offensive and that I needed more empathy.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
So the narrative here that you've heard from everyone from
Fox News to this young woman herself, to the governor
of Florida as well weighed in on this, Ron DeSantis
and beyond, is that she is being discriminated against from
her Christian beliefs. She is a good student, she submitted
a decent essay and got a zero because of discrimination
(04:54):
and bias and all of that. But the narrative on
kind of the left wing side of the internet, or
even just maybe less culturally conservative side of the Internet
is that she is crying victim for no reason. She's
being a snowflake, and her essay was trash. There's really
no way other way to describe how people are describing it.
(05:16):
Here is one TikTok video with more than three million views.
Listen to this that.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Girl from Oklahoma.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I read her essay, dog, it's so bad.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I've written, on average, like an essay a week for
the past two years, save for like summer break, Okay,
had many compliments from many of my professors saying that
writing is my strong suit. Okay, and if there is
a writing portion on a test, they tell me to
put my focus on that because that's where IM gonna
get most of my points. Oh, she has like no
complex sentences. She all of her sentences are like the
same structure. There's like no thesis, there's no arguments, there's
(05:50):
no supporting evidence, there's no citations. Not only did she
have no evidence to back up the claim that she
didn't make, her writing style is atrocious. She has no
like writing voice other than like reminding me of like
my young women's leaders from when I was fourteen. Like
it feels like she's trying to gaslight me, but she's
doing a shame jong. At no point in reading her
essay did I understand the point that she was trying
(06:11):
to make other than God good. But she didn't even
like cite specific sceptions of the Bible. If you're going
to make an argumentative essay, make an argumentative essay. Was
it even meant to be argumentative? What was she trying
to prove? What was the message of her paper? No
wonder she got a zero. It was shitty. I don't
think there was any bias. I just think that that
was an awful paper. You had no thesis, you had
(06:31):
no arguments, You had nothing to benefit the arguments that
you didn't have. You had no citations, nothing. Her paper
was just like word vomit. It was just bigoted word vomit.
And you didn't have anything to back up your biased
claims so that you could even try to prove them.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
So I think you guys are started to get the
idea here. But this controversy, on one side, we have
her saying, we have people saying she's a victim, she
was discriminated again, she didn't deserve as zero. And on
the other side that you have people saying it was
a terrible essay. She deserved a zero, not a victim.
There was no bias here at all. I think both
are essentially wrong, as I will get into, But we
will start with this young woman and the essay that
(07:08):
she submitted, and then we will talk about the transgender professor,
who trust me, there's some tea there that you're going
to want to stick around for. But first on this
young woman, I did what basically no one did. I
really after watching the commentary about this, it is clear
to me that most of these people do not even
know what the original article was about, what the assignment was.
(07:30):
The kind of right wing magaculture warrior types that are
discussing this, like Michael Knowles, for example, talked about this
and said she was asked to give her opinion about
gender identity, and she cited the Bible and then then
went on this whole rat about how she's right. He
like misstated the situation from the beginning. She was asked
to read and respond to an academic article that really
(07:52):
had nothing to do with trans issues, or very little
to do with it at least, and was about gender stereotypes.
And the article I went and read it is called
Relations among Gender Typicality, Pure relations and Mental Health during
early adolescens. And it's this long empirical thing where they
did a survey and they report on the fact that
(08:15):
more girly girls in terms of kids who are more
fashionable and pretty, are more popular, and more masculine boys,
more athletic and outgoing, are more popular, and that either
tom boys or feminine boys don't actually receive that. Instead
they are harassed according to this survey, and They talk
a lot about gender stereotypes and the psychological impact of
(08:37):
them and all this stuff. That is what the essay
was about. It wasn't actually about trans stuff or gender
identity though that is most of what the essay response
talked about in reference to biblical stuff. So it was
very off topic kind of the response. But people seem
to not know that, and I think that's pretty crucial
context for understanding why they might give a zero on
(09:01):
this assignment. So the other thing is the assignment instructions
very clearly asked students to submit a six hundred and
fifty word response that shows they did two things. Read
the academic article in question, and then thought critically about
its contents. Full Nikki the young woman here, she submitted
(09:24):
something else, something other than that. She wrote a roughly
two hundred and fifty word response, so that's like far
short of the required length, where she very briefly mentions
gender stereotypes and kids being teased, also saying that she
might be fine with it, but then later saying she
(09:46):
doesn't think it should be teased. Very contradictory. But then
she primarily proceeds to discuss her religious perspectives about gender
and trans issues, just through a that she doesn't actually
explain or support. So I'll read you a couple quotes here.
(10:06):
God made male and female and made us differently from
each other on purpose and for a purpose society. Pushing
the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should
be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely
harms American youth. Pushing the lie that everyone has their
own truth and everyone can do whatever they want and
(10:28):
be whoever they want is not biblical whatsoever. Now for
a moment, set aside what you think of those statements
or assertions, because some of it you might agree with,
some of it might roll your eyes out a little bit.
What's really important is, though, is that the assignment didn't
ask about transgenderism, demons, or what is or isn't biblical,
(10:54):
And even if it had full Niki didn't really articulate
or defend those positions in a way that could at
least constitute critical thinking, even if it was like off
topic critical thinking. She just kind of asserts them and
then moves on. So for extempce, she just says it's
not biblical, but then moves on and doesn't even really
(11:16):
cite the Bible she briefly mentions Genesis, but there's not
even extended citations of the Bible or any sources at all,
which for an academic response is not great. There's really
no other way to say this. The essay was absolutely terrible.
It is probably one of the worst things I have
(11:38):
ever read. It is incoherent and muddled beyond belief, and
it it doesn't seem like she even read the abstract
of the paper she was supposed to respond to, let
alone the actual academic paper. And I went and reviewed
the rubric that they used to grade this paper, and
(12:01):
I actually went through it, like, how, okay, how would
I evaluate this? Because obviously I'm not somebody who is
going to discriminate against somebody for thinking there's two genders,
or for their Christian beliefs or anything like that. And
using the rubric the instructor provided ahead of time, Even
if we set aside the fact that she didn't even
write the full essay, she wrote two hundred and fifty words.
I'm pretty sure that's all I could find. At least,
(12:22):
it's hard to see even setting that aside, how any
grade other than maybe a five out of twenty five
could be given If you're feeling like super generous, you
could give her a few points rather than a zero.
So let's just go through that rubric, because everyone has
such strong opinions about whether she deserved the zero or not,
but very few people are actually talking about the grading criteria.
(12:42):
So the first part of it for ten points is
a clear tie to the article? Is there a clear
link back to the assigned article? Can the reader assess
whether the student has read the assigned article? No, there
is really no clear link to the actual academic article
they were supposed to read and respond to. She doesn't
pull out any of the numbers, the empirical stuff from there,
(13:04):
she doesn't quote it. She briefly mentions gender stereotypes, which
you could just get from the abstract or the title,
and then rambles about other stuff. So there's nothing about
her response paper that indicates she actually read this paper.
So you really have to give a zero out of
ten for that one. Now, reaction content. This is the
(13:26):
second category for ten points. Does the paper provide a
reaction or reflection or discussion of some aspect of the
article rather than a summary. So here's where I think
you could maybe give her partial points if you were
feeling generous because her reaction article does discuss a few
(13:47):
things from the article like gender, stereotypes and kids. Does
it really do a good job of that? No, not
at all, but I guess it does do that though
that is a minority of the two hundred and fifty
words that are available that I read. Most of it
is about like can you change your gender? And what
God wants gender roles to be, which is again not
(14:10):
really related to an empirical analysis of gender conformity and
non conformity to stereotypes and kids and how it affects
their mental health. So I could say, if we're being nice,
you could maybe give her five out of ten points
on that one, Like zero is what I would give,
but I would be a very harsh greater and I'd
probably fail a lot of people because I have a standard. Yeah,
(14:32):
so let's say five, right, And then the final category
is the clarity of writing for five points, And frankly,
on this front, the paper deserves negative points. So if
it was possible to give it negative negative ten points,
then I'd really give her a negative five. I mean,
it is one of the most muddled and incoherent and
nonsensical things I've ever read. It reads like something in
(14:54):
the context that is of being a junior in college.
Of course, if like an eighth grader wrote this, I
would not be saying the same thing. Even then I'd
be a little concerned about their writing ability at that age.
But yeah, So the truth is this person deserves a
zero if we're just being honest, They absolutely deserve a zero.
(15:16):
And the idea that she is somehow a victim or
a wonderful student who's just being punished for her Christian beliefs, no, babe,
she got lazy, she skipped the reading, and she just
wrote random stuff to fill the word count. And then
she's weaponizing religion and victimhood as a shield to get
off to kind of escape accountability for that for example,
(15:38):
like this grade is not going to count against her
because she appealed to the university, but it really should now.
And then just kind of the right wing culture war
apparatus has just seized upon her story without any real
diligence about the details and is running with it because
that's what they want to do. They want to paint
everything as you know, transactivists gone crazy, Christians under attack,
(16:01):
which sometimes is real. Sometimes that is true, Like I've
covered that kind of stuff a lot. You all know this,
but sometimes it's not and not everybody, in fact is
a victim. And sometimes we should actually expect people to
be accountable for their work. And in this case, this
young woman is not taking accountability for the fact that
she did a terrible job. She didn't really do the assignment,
(16:24):
and she deserved a zero. And I call out left
wing fake victim bullshit, and I have to put this
in the same categories simply for the sake of intellectual honesty.
Now that being said, does this mean that the left
wing people are right on this?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
What? Not?
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Really? I mean they're right that the essay is freaking terrible. Yes, However,
are they right that there's no bias at play here? No,
they're not. Because the and I was able to read
this as well, the response that this instructor, this transgender
TA gave is insane and absolutely biased. So even if
(17:01):
according to the rubric this this young woman did deserve
a zero, this TA does need to be investigated and
I should be on leave because she wrote she didn't
write what I said, Like, Hey, you didn't read that.
It's clear you didn't read the article. Most of this
is totally off topic. You didn't even cite the Bible.
You just talked about it and asserted it and didn't
(17:23):
even really explain. I'm gonna have to give you a
zero out of twenty five for this. Would happy to
be explained why. It's not because of your opinions. It's
because you haven't followed the guidelines. That is not what
this person said. This person posted these long rambling rants
where she described or I guess I don't know the
person's pronouns. The trans instructor posted this grading rant and said,
(17:47):
like your ideas are highly offensive, bitch. That does not
matter your subjective view or what hurts your fifees is
not a grading criteria, and that is suggestive of serious.
Whether you are offended by her work is irrelevant, and
if you cannot separate your personal beliefs from your grading,
(18:08):
that is a problem. Even if she did deserve a zero,
So that's the thing. You should be grading her based
on whether she met the requirements and whether her writing
is good and whether she supported her claims. That is
what you should be grading her, punt, not based on
your fiefees. And if you can't understand that, you should
not be a TA, and you certainly should not become
a professor one day if that's your goal. On as well,
(18:31):
the TA made some very strange claims in their response
to this young woman, including saying that quote sex is
neither binary nor fixed, referring to biological sex. That's not true,
and it's not acceptable for professor or instructors to be
teaching factually false information driven by their personal identity or
(18:54):
ideology to students as if it is fact. Biological sex
is based on the structure of your reproductive system. There
really are only two options. Even the very rare genetic
conditions that are called intersects can usually be placed in
one of those two options. And that it is fixed.
The structure of for reproductive system doesn't change over the
course of your lifetime or based on your subjective You
(19:15):
know how you feel inside. So yeah, I think the
university can and should investigate this instructor and potentially relieve
them of their duties because they're clearly corroded by ideology
and asserting nonsense as fact. And yet at the same time,
(19:36):
the grade they gave was valid, it was correct, and
conservative culture warriors are just seizing on this young woman
and painting her as this this victim that she's just
not And I don't accept that, and I hate that.
I hate when people play the victim and invoke the
victim card fruitlessly or baselessly, whether they are on the
(19:56):
left or the right. I want to and I have
one sidal point to make about this, but first I
just want to play you a video from somebody doing
exactly this. He's kind of a I don't know, Timu,
Charlie Kirk want to be whatever. He's a young kid.
Maybe he'll grow out of it and realize a lot
of what he's saying now is like cringe and boilerplate.
His name is Brilin hallahand and he is a right
(20:20):
wing Christian commentator and college student himself. Let's listen to
his video about the situation, and then I will give
you my thoughts.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
What professors are the first to take scripture out of
context and quote it incorrectly to support their mental illness
that is transgenderism. But the second that you correctly quote
scripture in context and at great length to push back
against their work propaganda, they give you a zero on
an essay.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
I just want to pause here for a second to
say that. She actually did not even quote Scripture at
great length. She mentioned Genesis. I don't even think there
was a direct quote, but she she not only used
the Bible as a source, which we could have a
discussion about whether that's appropriate. Let's assume that it is.
(21:08):
She didn't even really she did not extensively quote from it.
She barely quoted from it at all. If I recall
from reading her response, she just said the Bible says this,
or this is biblical, this isn't biblical, and didn't even
explain that position, like, okay, tell me why where in
the Bible does it say that, what's the reasoning, what's
the ration? Like? She didn't even do that. But of
(21:30):
course I would be willing to bet one thousand dollars
this kid saw the trend, made a TikTok about it
or whatever to millions of people that it's gone out to.
Didn't read the essay, certainly didn't read that underlying academic paper.
They don't bother to. Most people don't bother to. They
just seison the culture war story of the day, assume
(21:52):
a narrative, and don't care about the facts. But I'm
a little different. I think that's what.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Happened, unfortunately to a girl and alcohol who not really
responded to this topic of gender roles to push back
against her transgendor professor, to push back against this mental
illnesses being pushed in America's youth correctly by quoting scripture,
you know, this authoritative truth that is believed.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I'm sorry, she literally didn't even quote the scripture. Oh
my goodness. I mean she like, very briefly. There's a
couple parts where she references that, but she didn't even
extensively quote it.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Believed by literally billions of people on this planet. That
wasn't good enough. She didn't get a few points offt
like somebody would have if they just use chad SEPT.
Now she literally got a zero.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Well, actually, if they got caught using chat GPT, it
would probably be failed and investigated. Like that's actually a
big thing universities are supposed to crack down on. Even so,
like two wrongs don't make her right. And of course
he doesn't mention that she did not meet the basic requirements.
He doesn't mention that she didn't meet the basic requirements
of the assignment. No, a victim narrative has been sent
(23:01):
out and now the Christian right wing culture warriors are
going to cling to it, and that's all that matters.
It's the narrative that matters their truth. It's not the
facts of what happened here. Of course, she.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Did the assignment correctly. She didn't pull a liberal stunt
and by her blue and grab a nose ring and
a bullhorner sent up in class and protests. Note she
correctly did the assignment. But I think the speaks a
larger narrative that we're talking about. I'm a college freshman.
I've seen this on my campus, and I've seen this
across the country. So many students, unfortunately, are burdened by
(23:35):
this aspect that their professors put a literal foot on
them and they cannot speak their minds they can.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
So here's the problem. I actually think this is real.
I don't know the exact extent of it, but I
do believe there is very rampant left wing bias on
college campuses, and I'm sure a lot of right wing
leaning students or conservative leaning students are punished for their beliefs.
But this case isn't that, And it's like a you're
almost discrediting that real issue by making the poster child
(24:07):
of it, somebody who deserved the zero that they got.
I'm not sure whether he gets that, but that's actually
really hurting the cause of a real problem you have identified,
in my view, at least names.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
They can't form an opinion verbally that goes against this
authoritative narrative that is propaganda and education. Today, we've allowed
this form to just take holds basically from the hippie movement,
where activists and teachers clothing have seeped into higher education,
and today they're trying to control the minds of American youth.
(24:40):
But if you speak out against that, if you have
any opinion other than that, abrah professors, and I'm at
a zero, that can't be the standard. Our founders, the
ones that wrote the Declaration of Independence to make our
nation a Christian nation, the pilgrims that settled this country
to flee religious persecution, would be rolling over and they're
grave at this.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
So I want to talk about this last point, raise
that this woman getting a zero is somehow like a
odds with religious freedom or Christian Christian values, and the
Founding fathers would be a gast at this. I actually
think that they're almost pushing a form of like Christian dei.
Here they're saying you should be able to submit a
(25:22):
terrible essay that does not meet any of the assignment criteria,
even basic requirements like the length of the assignment, like
responding to the reading you were supposed to do. But
then if you cite the Bible and mention how that
you're Christian, you're supposed to not get the grade you deserve,
Like it's then a hate crime to give you the
(25:43):
grade you deserve. No, I mean, imagine a student that
submitted a off topic, terribly written, incoherent essay about black
lives matter and how I'm blossom see brown and I'm
a black trans woman, and then they got a zero
and they were like, oh, I'm being just criminated against.
We would laugh at them, We would ridicule them, We
would not declare them to be Like even if the
(26:05):
professor was also flawed and problematic and possibly biased, we
would still view that person as deserving the zero that
they got and not make them into some sort of
hero or martyr. But like, just because the allegiances allegiances
or the identities here are swapped, so many people on
the right are suddenly giving the same energy as like
(26:27):
almost the left wing DEI crowd on this. I think
meritocracy means that we should actually evaluate people based on
their merit. And I do not, in fact believe even
for a second that religious freedom includes the right to
skip your assigned reading, ignore assignment requirements, submit largely unrelated,
(26:47):
incoherent nonsense, and then still get an A. And I
just don't think this young woman is being victimized or
that what happened to her is some kind of national
outrage the way so many right wing voices are making
it out to be, even though obviously this professor and
the institution are biased and flawed as well. That is
(27:10):
my take on it, But you guys will have to
let me know what you think in the comments below.
Make sure subscribed if you aren't yet, to hit the
like button, comment with your thoughts. YadA YadA ya, and
that will be in for today's episode of the Bread
Versus Everyone podcast, we will talk again real sim
I read that girl from Oklahoma. I read her essay
talk it's so bad.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
But the second that you correctly quote scripture in context
in that great length to push back against their work propaganda,
they give you a zero on an essay.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Another viral culture war controversy is tearing the Internet apart,
but this time I kind of think everyone is wrong.
We're going to break this down, plus so much more
on today's episode of the brad Versus Everyone podcast, my
(00:35):
daily show where we take on the craziest ideas from
across the Internet and social media, all from an independent
political perspective. Now, guys, we are going to talk about
a huge political story that's also an Internet story. It's
a trending topic and it comes from the University of
Oklahoma where a student cited the Bible and her religious
(00:57):
beliefs on an assignment for a psychology class and was
given a zero by a trans professor. And it's now
blown up across TikTok, dividing opinion but also reaching like
the highest levels of government, with the mainstream media, even
right wing media Fox News raising the alarm saying it's
this horrible story. Liberal media outlets saying the student deserved
(01:19):
a zero, and even the governor of Oklahoma has weighed in,
and even a lawsuit maybe on the horizon. So there
is so much to unpack to this story. And my
take is going to surprise you, I think, because I
kind of think everyone is wrong, though I guess that's
normal for me. But and do stick with me, because
first we're going to go through the facts of what happened.
Then I'm going to tell you what both sides are saying.
(01:42):
Then finally I'll give you my analysis without further ado.
Let's listen to this video recapping the story from the
state newspaper, The Oklahoma and let's watch.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
An Oklahoma college student says she got a zero on
her essay because she sited the Bible. Her instructor said
she didn't cite empirical data. Sonicki, a junior at OU
majoring in psychology, was assigned to read an article about
gender and pure relations and write a six hundred fifty
word reaction Fulnicki wrote, God made male and female and
made us differently on purpose. Eliminating gender would be detrimental
(02:13):
as it pulls us farther from God's original plan for humans.
Her instructor responded that she didn't use empirical evidence and
said parts of the essay, including her line calling multiple
gender's demonic, were offensive ful. Nicki said she believed she
was graded unfairly because of her religious beliefs. She emailed
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, OU President Joseph Harrows, and others
asking for help. She also filed a formal discrimination complaint
(02:35):
and asked for her grade to be reviewed. This week,
O You said it completed a review of the situation.
The university placed the graduate student instructor on administrative leave.
A full time professor will take over the class for
the rest of the semester. O You also said it
made sure full Nicki wouldn't face academic harm from the
original grade. In a statement, the university said it supports fairness, respect,
and every student's right to express their religious beliefs. Full
(02:58):
Nick's discrimination complaint is still being reviewed. Stid also weaited
on X, calling the situation deeply concerning and asking OU's
readers to look into it further. The case i sparked
a new conversation about free speech on Oklahoma college campuses,
especially when students cite religion in classwork. Ohu's investigation is
still ongoing. We'll continue to follow updates as they developed.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
So look, I appreciate the reporting from the oklahom and
there I feel like they gave a pretty good neutral
summary of the facts. I will get into more details
because for me, the details of this story really matter.
I came into it at face value, very skeptical of
you know, like radical transactivists and academics and professors, and
typically more sympathetic to people who say things like there
(03:39):
are two genders. But there's more to the story than that.
There's a lot more. But first, she is describing herself
essentially as a victim, this young student, and she is
not only filing a complaint saying that she is a
victim of religious discrimination, she has also done a media tour.
So for example, here's she is on Fox News discussing
(04:02):
her case.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
I was told to get my opinion on gender stereotypes
and gender norms, so that's what I did. I didn't
think that was me needing to be brave or have courage.
I thought I was just sharing my opinion like I
was asked to do. So that's what I did, And
I talked about the Bible and what God says about
gender norms and about how there are two genders and
(04:23):
things like that. And the response I got back was
a zero on that paper, and the TA saying that
my writing was offensive and that I needed more empathy.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
So the narrative here that you've heard from everyone from
Fox News to this young woman herself, to the governor
of Florida as well weighed in on this, Ron DeSantis
and beyond, is that she is being discriminated against from
her Christian beliefs. She is a good student, she submitted
a decent essay and got a zero because of discrimination
(04:54):
and bias and all of that. But the narrative on
kind of the left wing side of the internet, or
even just maybe less culturally conservative side of the Internet
is that she is crying victim for no reason. She's
being a snowflake, and her essay was trash. There's really
no way other way to describe how people are describing it.
(05:16):
Here is one TikTok video with more than three million views.
Listen to this that.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Girl from Oklahoma.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I read her essay, dog, it's so bad.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I've written, on average, like an essay a week for
the past two years, save for like summer break, Okay,
had many compliments from many of my professors saying that
writing is my strong suit. Okay, and if there is
a writing portion on a test, they tell me to
put my focus on that because that's where IM gonna
get most of my points. Oh, she has like no
complex sentences. She all of her sentences are like the
same structure. There's like no thesis, there's no arguments, there's
(05:50):
no supporting evidence, there's no citations. Not only did she
have no evidence to back up the claim that she
didn't make, her writing style is atrocious. She has no
like writing voice other than like reminding me of like
my young women's leaders from when I was fourteen. Like
it feels like she's trying to gaslight me, but she's
doing a shame jong. At no point in reading her
essay did I understand the point that she was trying
(06:11):
to make other than God good. But she didn't even
like cite specific sceptions of the Bible. If you're going
to make an argumentative essay, make an argumentative essay. Was
it even meant to be argumentative? What was she trying
to prove? What was the message of her paper? No
wonder she got a zero. It was shitty. I don't
think there was any bias. I just think that that
was an awful paper. You had no thesis, you had
(06:31):
no arguments, You had nothing to benefit the arguments that
you didn't have. You had no citations, nothing. Her paper
was just like word vomit. It was just bigoted word vomit.
And you didn't have anything to back up your biased
claims so that you could even try to prove them.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
So I think you guys are started to get the
idea here. But this controversy, on one side, we have
her saying, we have people saying she's a victim, she
was discriminated again, she didn't deserve as zero. And on
the other side that you have people saying it was
a terrible essay. She deserved a zero, not a victim.
There was no bias here at all. I think both
are essentially wrong, as I will get into, But we
will start with this young woman and the essay that
(07:08):
she submitted, and then we will talk about the transgender professor,
who trust me, there's some tea there that you're going
to want to stick around for. But first on this
young woman, I did what basically no one did. I
really after watching the commentary about this, it is clear
to me that most of these people do not even
know what the original article was about, what the assignment was.
(07:30):
The kind of right wing magaculture warrior types that are
discussing this, like Michael Knowles, for example, talked about this
and said she was asked to give her opinion about
gender identity, and she cited the Bible and then then
went on this whole rat about how she's right. He
like misstated the situation from the beginning. She was asked
to read and respond to an academic article that really
(07:52):
had nothing to do with trans issues, or very little
to do with it at least, and was about gender stereotypes.
And the article I went and read it is called
Relations among Gender Typicality, Pure relations and Mental Health during
early adolescens. And it's this long empirical thing where they
did a survey and they report on the fact that
(08:15):
more girly girls in terms of kids who are more
fashionable and pretty, are more popular, and more masculine boys,
more athletic and outgoing, are more popular, and that either
tom boys or feminine boys don't actually receive that. Instead
they are harassed according to this survey, and They talk
a lot about gender stereotypes and the psychological impact of
(08:37):
them and all this stuff. That is what the essay
was about. It wasn't actually about trans stuff or gender
identity though that is most of what the essay response
talked about in reference to biblical stuff. So it was
very off topic kind of the response. But people seem
to not know that, and I think that's pretty crucial
context for understanding why they might give a zero on
(09:01):
this assignment. So the other thing is the assignment instructions
very clearly asked students to submit a six hundred and
fifty word response that shows they did two things. Read
the academic article in question, and then thought critically about
its contents. Full Nikki the young woman here, she submitted
(09:24):
something else, something other than that. She wrote a roughly
two hundred and fifty word response, so that's like far
short of the required length, where she very briefly mentions
gender stereotypes and kids being teased, also saying that she
might be fine with it, but then later saying she
(09:46):
doesn't think it should be teased. Very contradictory. But then
she primarily proceeds to discuss her religious perspectives about gender
and trans issues, just through a that she doesn't actually
explain or support. So I'll read you a couple quotes here.
(10:06):
God made male and female and made us differently from
each other on purpose and for a purpose society. Pushing
the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should
be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely
harms American youth. Pushing the lie that everyone has their
own truth and everyone can do whatever they want and
(10:28):
be whoever they want is not biblical whatsoever. Now for
a moment, set aside what you think of those statements
or assertions, because some of it you might agree with,
some of it might roll your eyes out a little bit.
What's really important is, though, is that the assignment didn't
ask about transgenderism, demons, or what is or isn't biblical,
(10:54):
And even if it had full Niki didn't really articulate
or defend those positions in a way that could at
least constitute critical thinking, even if it was like off
topic critical thinking. She just kind of asserts them and
then moves on. So for extempce, she just says it's
not biblical, but then moves on and doesn't even really
(11:16):
cite the Bible she briefly mentions Genesis, but there's not
even extended citations of the Bible or any sources at all,
which for an academic response is not great. There's really
no other way to say this. The essay was absolutely terrible.
It is probably one of the worst things I have
(11:38):
ever read. It is incoherent and muddled beyond belief, and
it it doesn't seem like she even read the abstract
of the paper she was supposed to respond to, let
alone the actual academic paper. And I went and reviewed
the rubric that they used to grade this paper, and
(12:01):
I actually went through it, like, how, okay, how would
I evaluate this? Because obviously I'm not somebody who is
going to discriminate against somebody for thinking there's two genders,
or for their Christian beliefs or anything like that. And
using the rubric the instructor provided ahead of time, Even
if we set aside the fact that she didn't even
write the full essay, she wrote two hundred and fifty words.
I'm pretty sure that's all I could find. At least,
(12:22):
it's hard to see even setting that aside, how any
grade other than maybe a five out of twenty five
could be given If you're feeling like super generous, you
could give her a few points rather than a zero.
So let's just go through that rubric, because everyone has
such strong opinions about whether she deserved the zero or not,
but very few people are actually talking about the grading criteria.
(12:42):
So the first part of it for ten points is
a clear tie to the article? Is there a clear
link back to the assigned article? Can the reader assess
whether the student has read the assigned article? No, there
is really no clear link to the actual academic article
they were supposed to read and respond to. She doesn't
pull out any of the numbers, the empirical stuff from there,
(13:04):
she doesn't quote it. She briefly mentions gender stereotypes, which
you could just get from the abstract or the title,
and then rambles about other stuff. So there's nothing about
her response paper that indicates she actually read this paper.
So you really have to give a zero out of
ten for that one. Now, reaction content. This is the
(13:26):
second category for ten points. Does the paper provide a
reaction or reflection or discussion of some aspect of the
article rather than a summary. So here's where I think
you could maybe give her partial points if you were
feeling generous because her reaction article does discuss a few
(13:47):
things from the article like gender, stereotypes and kids. Does
it really do a good job of that? No, not
at all, but I guess it does do that though
that is a minority of the two hundred and fifty
words that are available that I read. Most of it
is about like can you change your gender? And what
God wants gender roles to be, which is again not
(14:10):
really related to an empirical analysis of gender conformity and
non conformity to stereotypes and kids and how it affects
their mental health. So I could say, if we're being nice,
you could maybe give her five out of ten points
on that one, Like zero is what I would give,
but I would be a very harsh greater and I'd
probably fail a lot of people because I have a standard. Yeah,
(14:32):
so let's say five, right, And then the final category
is the clarity of writing for five points, And frankly,
on this front, the paper deserves negative points. So if
it was possible to give it negative negative ten points,
then I'd really give her a negative five. I mean,
it is one of the most muddled and incoherent and
nonsensical things I've ever read. It reads like something in
(14:54):
the context that is of being a junior in college.
Of course, if like an eighth grader wrote this, I
would not be saying the same thing. Even then I'd
be a little concerned about their writing ability at that age.
But yeah, So the truth is this person deserves a
zero if we're just being honest, They absolutely deserve a zero.
(15:16):
And the idea that she is somehow a victim or
a wonderful student who's just being punished for her Christian beliefs, no, babe,
she got lazy, she skipped the reading, and she just
wrote random stuff to fill the word count. And then
she's weaponizing religion and victimhood as a shield to get
off to kind of escape accountability for that for example,
(15:38):
like this grade is not going to count against her
because she appealed to the university, but it really should now.
And then just kind of the right wing culture war
apparatus has just seized upon her story without any real
diligence about the details and is running with it because
that's what they want to do. They want to paint
everything as you know, transactivists gone crazy, Christians under attack,
(16:01):
which sometimes is real. Sometimes that is true, Like I've
covered that kind of stuff a lot. You all know this,
but sometimes it's not and not everybody, in fact is
a victim. And sometimes we should actually expect people to
be accountable for their work. And in this case, this
young woman is not taking accountability for the fact that
she did a terrible job. She didn't really do the assignment,
(16:24):
and she deserved a zero. And I call out left
wing fake victim bullshit, and I have to put this
in the same categories simply for the sake of intellectual honesty.
Now that being said, does this mean that the left
wing people are right on this?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
What? Not?
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Really? I mean they're right that the essay is freaking terrible. Yes, However,
are they right that there's no bias at play here? No,
they're not. Because the and I was able to read
this as well, the response that this instructor, this transgender
TA gave is insane and absolutely biased. So even if
(17:01):
according to the rubric this this young woman did deserve
a zero, this TA does need to be investigated and
I should be on leave because she wrote she didn't
write what I said, Like, Hey, you didn't read that.
It's clear you didn't read the article. Most of this
is totally off topic. You didn't even cite the Bible.
You just talked about it and asserted it and didn't
(17:23):
even really explain. I'm gonna have to give you a
zero out of twenty five for this. Would happy to
be explained why. It's not because of your opinions. It's
because you haven't followed the guidelines. That is not what
this person said. This person posted these long rambling rants
where she described or I guess I don't know the
person's pronouns. The trans instructor posted this grading rant and said,
(17:47):
like your ideas are highly offensive, bitch. That does not
matter your subjective view or what hurts your fifees is
not a grading criteria, and that is suggestive of serious.
Whether you are offended by her work is irrelevant, and
if you cannot separate your personal beliefs from your grading,
(18:08):
that is a problem. Even if she did deserve a zero,
So that's the thing. You should be grading her based
on whether she met the requirements and whether her writing
is good and whether she supported her claims. That is
what you should be grading her, punt, not based on
your fiefees. And if you can't understand that, you should
not be a TA, and you certainly should not become
a professor one day if that's your goal. On as well,
(18:31):
the TA made some very strange claims in their response
to this young woman, including saying that quote sex is
neither binary nor fixed, referring to biological sex. That's not true,
and it's not acceptable for professor or instructors to be
teaching factually false information driven by their personal identity or
(18:54):
ideology to students as if it is fact. Biological sex
is based on the structure of your reproductive system. There
really are only two options. Even the very rare genetic
conditions that are called intersects can usually be placed in
one of those two options. And that it is fixed.
The structure of for reproductive system doesn't change over the
course of your lifetime or based on your subjective You
(19:15):
know how you feel inside. So yeah, I think the
university can and should investigate this instructor and potentially relieve
them of their duties because they're clearly corroded by ideology
and asserting nonsense as fact. And yet at the same time,
(19:36):
the grade they gave was valid, it was correct, and
conservative culture warriors are just seizing on this young woman
and painting her as this this victim that she's just
not And I don't accept that, and I hate that.
I hate when people play the victim and invoke the
victim card fruitlessly or baselessly, whether they are on the
(19:56):
left or the right. I want to and I have
one sidal point to make about this, but first I
just want to play you a video from somebody doing
exactly this. He's kind of a I don't know, Timu,
Charlie Kirk want to be whatever. He's a young kid.
Maybe he'll grow out of it and realize a lot
of what he's saying now is like cringe and boilerplate.
His name is Brilin hallahand and he is a right
(20:20):
wing Christian commentator and college student himself. Let's listen to
his video about the situation, and then I will give
you my thoughts.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
What professors are the first to take scripture out of
context and quote it incorrectly to support their mental illness
that is transgenderism. But the second that you correctly quote
scripture in context and at great length to push back
against their work propaganda, they give you a zero on
an essay.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
I just want to pause here for a second to
say that. She actually did not even quote Scripture at
great length. She mentioned Genesis. I don't even think there
was a direct quote, but she she not only used
the Bible as a source, which we could have a
discussion about whether that's appropriate. Let's assume that it is.
(21:08):
She didn't even really she did not extensively quote from it.
She barely quoted from it at all. If I recall
from reading her response, she just said the Bible says this,
or this is biblical, this isn't biblical, and didn't even
explain that position, like, okay, tell me why where in
the Bible does it say that, what's the reasoning, what's
the ration? Like? She didn't even do that. But of
(21:30):
course I would be willing to bet one thousand dollars
this kid saw the trend, made a TikTok about it
or whatever to millions of people that it's gone out to.
Didn't read the essay, certainly didn't read that underlying academic paper.
They don't bother to. Most people don't bother to. They
just seison the culture war story of the day, assume
(21:52):
a narrative, and don't care about the facts. But I'm
a little different. I think that's what.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Happened, unfortunately to a girl and alcohol who not really
responded to this topic of gender roles to push back
against her transgendor professor, to push back against this mental
illnesses being pushed in America's youth correctly by quoting scripture,
you know, this authoritative truth that is believed.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I'm sorry, she literally didn't even quote the scripture. Oh
my goodness. I mean she like, very briefly. There's a
couple parts where she references that, but she didn't even
extensively quote it.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Believed by literally billions of people on this planet. That
wasn't good enough. She didn't get a few points offt
like somebody would have if they just use chad SEPT.
Now she literally got a zero.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Well, actually, if they got caught using chat GPT, it
would probably be failed and investigated. Like that's actually a
big thing universities are supposed to crack down on. Even so,
like two wrongs don't make her right. And of course
he doesn't mention that she did not meet the basic requirements.
He doesn't mention that she didn't meet the basic requirements
of the assignment. No, a victim narrative has been sent
(23:01):
out and now the Christian right wing culture warriors are
going to cling to it, and that's all that matters.
It's the narrative that matters their truth. It's not the
facts of what happened here. Of course, she.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Did the assignment correctly. She didn't pull a liberal stunt
and by her blue and grab a nose ring and
a bullhorner sent up in class and protests. Note she
correctly did the assignment. But I think the speaks a
larger narrative that we're talking about. I'm a college freshman.
I've seen this on my campus, and I've seen this
across the country. So many students, unfortunately, are burdened by
(23:35):
this aspect that their professors put a literal foot on
them and they cannot speak their minds they can.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
So here's the problem. I actually think this is real.
I don't know the exact extent of it, but I
do believe there is very rampant left wing bias on
college campuses, and I'm sure a lot of right wing
leaning students or conservative leaning students are punished for their beliefs.
But this case isn't that, And it's like a you're
almost discrediting that real issue by making the poster child
(24:07):
of it, somebody who deserved the zero that they got.
I'm not sure whether he gets that, but that's actually
really hurting the cause of a real problem you have identified,
in my view, at least names.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
They can't form an opinion verbally that goes against this
authoritative narrative that is propaganda and education. Today, we've allowed
this form to just take holds basically from the hippie movement,
where activists and teachers clothing have seeped into higher education,
and today they're trying to control the minds of American youth.
(24:40):
But if you speak out against that, if you have
any opinion other than that, abrah professors, and I'm at
a zero, that can't be the standard. Our founders, the
ones that wrote the Declaration of Independence to make our
nation a Christian nation, the pilgrims that settled this country
to flee religious persecution, would be rolling over and they're
grave at this.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
So I want to talk about this last point, raise
that this woman getting a zero is somehow like a
odds with religious freedom or Christian Christian values, and the
Founding fathers would be a gast at this. I actually
think that they're almost pushing a form of like Christian dei.
Here they're saying you should be able to submit a
(25:22):
terrible essay that does not meet any of the assignment criteria,
even basic requirements like the length of the assignment, like
responding to the reading you were supposed to do. But
then if you cite the Bible and mention how that
you're Christian, you're supposed to not get the grade you deserve,
Like it's then a hate crime to give you the
(25:43):
grade you deserve. No, I mean, imagine a student that
submitted a off topic, terribly written, incoherent essay about black
lives matter and how I'm blossom see brown and I'm
a black trans woman, and then they got a zero
and they were like, oh, I'm being just criminated against.
We would laugh at them, We would ridicule them, We
would not declare them to be Like even if the
(26:05):
professor was also flawed and problematic and possibly biased, we
would still view that person as deserving the zero that
they got and not make them into some sort of
hero or martyr. But like, just because the allegiances allegiances
or the identities here are swapped, so many people on
the right are suddenly giving the same energy as like
(26:27):
almost the left wing DEI crowd on this. I think
meritocracy means that we should actually evaluate people based on
their merit. And I do not, in fact believe even
for a second that religious freedom includes the right to
skip your assigned reading, ignore assignment requirements, submit largely unrelated,
(26:47):
incoherent nonsense, and then still get an A. And I
just don't think this young woman is being victimized or
that what happened to her is some kind of national
outrage the way so many right wing voices are making
it out to be, even though obviously this professor and
the institution are biased and flawed as well. That is
(27:10):
my take on it, But you guys will have to
let me know what you think in the comments below.
Make sure subscribed if you aren't yet, to hit the
like button, comment with your thoughts. YadA YadA ya, and
that will be in for today's episode of the Bread
Versus Everyone podcast, we will talk again real sim
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