Instructor who gave OU student a zero on anti-trans paper removed from teaching

The University of Oklahoma graduate assistant who gave a student a failing grade on an anti-transgender paper will no longer be teaching at the university, officials said Monday.

Graduate teaching assistant Mel Curth, who is trans, was placed on administrative leave a few weeks ago after giving student Samantha Fulnecky a zero on her psychology paper. The paper described transgender people as “demonic” and asserted that gender roles are “Biblically ordained.”

Fulnecky claimed the grade was retaliation for her religious views, but Curth said the zero was based on academic criteria. Curth wrote that the essay “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 also noted that portraying a marginalized group as “demonic” is “highly offensive” and urged the student to use empirical sources rather than doctrinal statements when critiquing course material.

The university posted a statement to social media Monday saying the graduate assistant “was arbitrary in the grading of this specific paper” and “will no longer have instructional duties.” It did not name either Curth or Fulnecky, but their names have been disclosed elsewhere.

The statement said the university had investigated the student’s claim of religious discrimination but would not release the findings. The university had already decided on her appeal of her grade and removed the paper from her total point value for her class, so there “was no academic harm” to her, the statement noted.

“The University of Oklahoma believes strongly in both its faculty’s rights to teach with academic freedom and integrity and it students’ right to receive an education that is free from a lecturer’s impermissible evaluative standards,” the statement continued. “We are committed to teaching students how to think, not what to think.”

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The school’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors thought little of the university’s statement. “Essentially, nothing is new here,” a spokesperson for the chapter said in a statement to TV station KFOR. “OU claims without providing any supporting or specific reasons why Mel Curth was removed. They have claimed in the past in press releases that this was due to supposed and disturbing claims of ‘religious discrimination’ that clash with academic freedom. Is it now? Instead, they hide behind vague statements and essentially assertions of ‘trust us.’ At this point, they need to show us and not tell us. And once again, OU is making an employment decision public, which is inflaming the situation.”

The university has placed a second instructor on leave after, according to school officials, she told students they would be excused from class to attend a protest in favor of Curth. Student newspaper OU Nightly identified Kelli Alvarez as the instructor for the course, which is English composition.

Kalib Magana, president of the University of Oklahoma’s Turning Point USA chapter, asked whether counterprotesters would also receive excused absences. Alvarez replied that a counterprotest must be organized. None was, but several conservative students made their views known at the pro-Curth demonstration. Magana filed a complaint against Alvarez with the university. Turning Point USA is a right-wing student organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk.

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There has been controversy over issues of gender identity at other universities in conservative states. Melissa McCoul, a professor at Texas A&M, was fired in September after a student complained about McCoul’s discussion of the topic. In November, the Texas A&M Board of Regents barred faculty from discussing “race or gender ideology” in the 12 universities it oversees.