University of Oklahoma (OU) recently placed graduate student professor Mel Curth on administrative leave after student Samanth Fulnecky lodged a complaint over religious discrimination.
This is after Curth assigned a 650-word essay response to the research article “Relations Among Gender Typicality, Peer Relations, and Mental Health During Early Adolescence,” written by Jennifer A. Jewell and Christia Spears Brown from the University of Kentucky. This article covers a study conducted on middle school students with regard to students’ perception of one another and themselves, and how that influences both teasing and mental health outcomes.
Per the abstract, “The current study examines whether being high in gender typicality is associated with popularity, whether being low in gender typicality is associated with rejection/teasing, and whether the teasing due to low gender typicality mediates the association with negative mental health.”
Students in Lifespan Development (PSY 2603) were asked to write an essay in response to this article. Fulnecky’s essay received a 0/25 for its irrelevance, lack of any academic citations, and for being blatantly offensive. She decided to file a complaint over this grade, and also sent her essay and subsequent communications with Curth to The Oklahoman, a regional newspaper.
This caught the attention of Turning Point USA, a group that has come out in support of Samantha Fulnecky and called Curth “mentally ill” as well as “lacking in intellectual maturity.”
OU, in choosing to place Curth on leave, but not her fellow instructor, who also gave this essay a failing grade, chose to capitulate to outside influence rather than operate according to existing policy.
Yet, Fulnecky’s essay had a plethora of problems. While it is true that it was rife with religious content, that content was out of place and clearly unrelated to the assigned readings. There is also an expectation when one attends a public university that their homework will be largely secular, unless personal religious leanings are relevant to the assignment.
If Fulnecky was truly concerned about the content of the assigned reading itself, it would have been acceptable for her to lodge a complaint with her department chair, as is standard practice at universities and other institutions of higher education. But, to do that would have been to expose herself to the very real possibility that faculty did not find any fault with the reading itself, which was largely divorced from ideas of transgenderism, gender identity, or broader concepts of queerness in the first place.
OU and all public institutions have a duty to their faculty, staff, and students to act in good faith when judging cases of potential discrimination. That means judging a situation by its facts, not its sensationalism. While it’s true that this case got the attention of national media, including Turning Point USA, it’s also true that Fulnecky’s essay was objectively bad. It deserved the grade that it got, and her attempts to win national attention and sympathy are bad faith and damaging to academic institutions.
What is more damaging, however, is the fact that OU, rather than support Mel Curth, who is currently facing a barrage of hatred thanks to present publicity, has opted to remain silent and place her on administrative leave.
All universities should see this controversy as a learning opportunity. While it is easy to bend to the will of the media and base administrative decisions on the court of public opinion rather than relying on existing policy, it is important not to. It is entirely possible that any one member of our campus community could face their “controversial” day, and it’s crucial that they are given every chance to defend themselves.
That means relying on policy. OU very easily could have released a statement assuring the public that the case will be judged based on existing policy, including a grade appeal — as is standard for most cases of disagreement between students and professors — an administrative review, and even giving time for administration to review the religious discrimination complaint.
Being reactionary is important if a building is burning, for example, but not if an institution is being lambasted by people so far removed from the situation that it’s comical, because that outrage is temporary. We don’t live in Oklahoma, for example, and yet we are talking about their university’s latest blunder. Meanwhile, the people who live and work there are much more permanently impacted. Did OU consider the impact this would have on actual students and faculty, or just how it would affect its national reputation?
The silence from the university is a choice, and all choices have consequences. OU made a clear choice to ignore fact and context, the consequences of which have rippling effects in the university community. Part of journalistic integrity is seeking the truth and reporting it. The Whit staff works tirelessly to make sure all sides and voices are heard. All sides and voices were not even given a fair shot in this case. It begs the question, do facts matter anymore? Does context have any place, or are we all just beholden to the feelings of a small group with unfounded outrage and fear-mongering?
For comments/questions about this story, DM us on Instagram @thewhitatrowan or email [email protected]
This article has been updated for accuracy, last update Dec. 4, 5:40 p.m.
