The OU Essay and the Christian Persecution Complex

On December 23rd, the University of Oklahoma announced that Mel Curth, the University of Oklahoma graduate assistant who failed a student whose essay described transgender people as “denomic,” has been removed from her position. In a social media post, the University of Oklahoma posted that: “the University of Oklahoma believes strongly in both its faculty’s rights to teach with academic freedom and integrity and its students’ rights 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.”

Further, the university stated in this statement that “the grade appeal was decided in favor of the student, removing the assignment completely from the student’s total point value of the class, resulting in no academic harm to the student.”

While on a first reading, it may seem like an isolated incident of teacher-student disagreement, a closer reading reveals how the student used “religious freedom” to argue for academic leniency and the termination of an instructor who graded her fairly. It is a case study into how academic rigor and accountability can and is being dismissed as religious discrimination, how far-right media outlets and leaders are eager to take up the cause, and academic institution’s willingness to bend to political pressure.

How the Case Unfolded

Over the past three months, protests at the University of Oklahoma have exploded after the university placed Curth on leave after a student complained that the failing grade she received for a paper was the result of religious discrimination. Samantha Fulnecky, a 20-year-old student at the University of Oklahoma, filed a complaint of religious discrimination after she received a failing grade on a paper that cited the Bible to assert that “belief in multiple genders” was “demonic.”

The paper was an assignment where she and her classmates were asked to respond in 650 words to an academic study that explored whether gender norms were associated with popularity or bullying among middle school students. Fulnecky responded that she disagreed with the article because she does not support the belief that there are more than two genders, writing:

“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.”

Fulnecky did not analyze the article nor address its central argument, and so the graduate teaching assistant responsible for grading it–Mel Curth–wrote that the paper “contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive.” Curth clarified, “please note that I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs,” but rather because she did not complete the assignment according to the rubric.

The failing grade only represented 3% of her final grade and does not affect her academic standing, but the situation has become a lightning rod for conservative media outlets. Turning Point OU, a chapter of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s organization, posted about Fulnecky’s essay on X and the story has gone viral. The chapter wrote in their post that “professors like this are the very reason conservatives can’t voice their beliefs in the classroom.”

Along with filing a complaint of religious discrimination with the university, Fulnecky provided a copy of her essay to The Oklahoman, and defended the university’s decision to put Curth on leave during an OU Turning Point USA event this past Thursday night. At this event, Gabe Woolley presented Fulnecky with a Citation of Recognition from the Oklahoma House of Representatives, District 98, for her “steadfast convictions, her commitment to speaking from a foundation of truth, and her courage in shining a light on serious concerns within the Oklahoma’s higher education system,” as he wrote on a Facebook post.

One day earlier, Fulnecky spoke at a meeting of the Oklahoma Constitutional Principles Affecting Culture Foundation meeting, where Freedom Caucus Chairman Shane Jett said he is not satisfied with the university’s response. “They didn’t fix the problem. The university is the problem. And the dearth of leadership, from the president down, is the problem.”

In a press release issued by the Freedom Caucus, Jett said that “Oklahoma taxpayers should not continue bankrolling indoctrination mills that violate the First Amendment.”

As a result, college and university faculty across the country have voiced concern about what the incident means for academic integrity. Shortly after Turning Point’s post went viral, Curth was placed on administrative leave as the university launched an investigation into the incident and a full-time professor was reassigned to the course. Last week, the OU Graduate Student Senate criticized the university’s response to Fulnecky’s claim of religious discrimination and defended Curth. The University’s Department of Psychology recognized Curth’s teaching in the past, awarding her “Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award” in November 2025.

Shortly thereafter, another lecturer was dismissed after informing students that they would be excused absent from her class if they attended an on-campus protest in support of Curth but allegedly did not provide the same opportunity for students to protest Curth’s reinstatement. And it’s not the first time that OU professors have been targeted by Turning Point USA. As of October 16th, OU Sociology Professor Samuel Perry was listed on the TPUS’s website under a “Professor Watchlist.” This watchlist allegedly identifies professors and instructors that “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”

The incident has brought OU to the forefront of ongoing discussions about academic integrity and pressures professors and students are calling out bigotry in their classrooms. In fact, on Friday, the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education approved the termination of 16 and the suspension of three OU degree programs as part of the board’s comprehensive review of programs.

This Is Not About Religious Liberty

This isn’t a story about religious liberty - it’s a story about academic accountability and rigor being reframed as discrimination. Funecky did not complete the assignment as required, and when she was graded accordingly, far-right organizations amplified her complaint to manufacture a moral panic about “Christian persecution.” The result wasn’t dialogue or debate - it was retaliation.

She’s using the Christian nationalism of the moment to argue a case that should be closed and shut. It’s about how she didn’t cite her sources or develop a solid argument. For Christian nationalists and White supremacists eager to argue that their way of life–one that is built on bigotry enabled by Christian hegemony and White supremacy–is being threatened, Fulnecky’s situation is the perfect ammunition. It’s part of the Evangelical or Christian Persecution Complex that romanticizes criticism of sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and racist belief systems as “fulfillment of the persecution that Jesus foretold,” writes Kevin Singer for Sojourners.

When questioned about calling trans, nonbinary, and intersex people demonic, she said “I didn’t mean the demonic part in an offensive way.” There is no not offensive way in which Fulnecky can describe trans, nonbinary, and intersex people as “demonic.” Rather, calling the LGBTQ+ community “demonic” is part of a growing movement conflating queerness with spiritual evil, reviving in many ways a new Satanic Panic.

Fulnecky argues that she did not know that her instructor–Curth–is transgender, and when she found out, Fulnecky continued to misgender Curth when she spoke to Ray Carter for a piece published by the Oklahoma Council Of Public Affairs.

Fellow graduate student instructor Megan Waldon, who also grades assignments for Fulnecky’s class said that Fulnecky’s essay “directly and harshly criticizes your peers and their opinions, which are just as valuable as yours. Disagreeing with others is fine, but there is a respectful way to go about it. That goes for discussion posts as well as reaction papers.”

Fulnecky argued that since it was an online course, no other students saw the reaction essay, but even though Fulnecky claims that she had no intent to cause controversy with her essay, her participation in the viral moment has not only cast the University of Oklahoma’s credibility in the limelight but also led to Curth’s firing. This past December’s news set a dangerous precedent–how the American Christian Persecution Complex is not only threatening people’s careers but also the safety of the university space.

What This Means, and What We Can Do About It

For those currently teaching and learning in college and university spaces (or any educational space for that matter following the Supreme Court decision Mahmoud v. Taylor released this past June 2025 allowing that parents could opt their children out of lessons including LGBTQ+ representation on the grounds of religious liberty), please know that there are things that people working in these spaces can do to protect themselves.

The best thing to do in the classroom and outside of is to document every interaction–create and maintain a log of emails, transcripts, audio notes, and other receipts to document patterns of behavior and any form of escalation.

Next, find and connect with local and national reporting agencies with independent fact-checking procedures and share the evidence, and call out the actors involved–from Fulnecky to the university administrators who were involved in Curth’s suspension and later removal. Transparency is accountability, and accountability is justice.

Protest and mobilize people on campus and across the country. Call on teachers and professors’ unions, student government associations, university accreditation boards, and student rights organizations and plan and mobilize your collective response to this and other situations and make protest, formal complaint, and walk out responses known to university administrators, board of reagents, and major funders. There is strength in numbers.

Let people into the discourse and show evidence (when appropriate) about what happened and who was involved, and clarify the ramifications of the situation–what does it mean for OU to allow people to claim discrimination on the basis of academic rigor when in fact, the fault is a failure to meet academic standards? What does this mean for OU’s reputation and that of its past and present students? What does this mean for other universities?

This isn’t just about OU, about Fulnecky or Curth, it’s about the legitimacy and protection of freedom of speech and academic integrity at universities in the face of fascism state-sanctioned violence.

It’s Not Just Fulnecky or OU that are Responsible

While traditionally some organizers might opt to utilize college and university complaint channels with extensive documentation to argue the case at hand, OU is an example where university spaces have bowed to far right political pressure instead of protecting their students and faculty. But everyone who escalated the situation and sacrificed Curth for the far-right’s anti-trans movement is responsible for the outcome.