Dec. 24 (UPI) — The University of Oklahoma relieved a raduate teaching assistant of her teaching responsibilities after a student disputed her grade on an essay about gender roles.
The state university initially put the instructor, Mel Curth, on administrative leave. Then, on Monday announced she would no longer teach at the school.
School officials said in a statement that Curth “was arbitrary in the grading of this specific paper.” They didn’t elaborate.
The university said in the statement that it “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.”
Curth’s lawyer Brittany M. Stewart told The New York Times that Curth “is considering all of her legal remedies, including appealing this decision.”
The essay was written by undergraduate student Samantha Fulnecky. In it, she wrote, “My prayer for the world and specifically for American society and youth, is that they would not believe the lies being spread from Satan that make them believe they are better off as another gender than what God made them.”
Curth has said that she failed the essay because 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.”
When Fulnecky asked Curth for a grade change, Curth replied, “If you took a geology class and argued that the Earth was flat, something contrary to the academic consensus of that field, then you would be asked to provide evidence of such, not just personal ideology.”
Fulnecky appealed her grade to the university, which said the essay would not count toward her final grade. Fulnecky has also filed a claim of religious discrimination.
“To be what I think is clearly discriminated against for my beliefs and using freedom of speech, and especially for my religious beliefs, I think that’s just absurd,” USA Today reported that Fulnecky said.
The dispute became a talking point of Turning Point USA, the organization founded by slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk and has ignited student protests.
Faculty rights advocates have spoken out against the university’s decision.
“Faculty and instructors have the professional responsibility to evaluate student work according to established academic standards, and this paper did not meet requirements,” said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, in a statement. “The university’s actions are an escalation of far-right efforts to politicize, surveil and discipline instruction, undermining the integrity of higher education.”
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