Samantha Fulnecky and the Oklahoma state grading controversy.

How the media sometimes just downright lies to you to push a story.

So while this has become somewhat of controversy in many ranks, the real controversy here is how the media continues to ignore the truth in favor of dishonestly and spin whenever the truth doesn't fit their narratives.

What happened was that a student named Samantha Fulnecky received a zero on a Psychology paper back in November. Fulnecky wrote a paper dismissing the concept of multiple genders, gender non-conformity, and pushing back on the idea that society needed to be more inclusive of alternate genders. She cited the bible as well as expressing personal views to reach this conclusion. While this might be a controversial subject in the Psychology department of a major college, the idea that there are two sexes or genders is a view held by somewhere between two thirds and three quarters of the American public. Samantha Fulnecky is not alone in this believe.

After getting the zero, Fulnecky filed a formal grade appeal, citing religious discrimination. The school sided with Fulnecky, removing the grade from her class, and suspending the teacher's assistant who issued the grade.

Now if you heard about the story from certain circles, you will be told that the zero came because Fulnecky was a horrible writer, that she didn't cite her sources, and that she used the bible rather than the empirical evidence that was necessary. The TA provided that her paper contradicted itself, that it was offensive, and that it didn't follow the assignment. But the assignment was called a "reaction paper" and was one of many reaction papers that were written approximately once a week during the course of the semester. These reaction papers had never required citations or evidence. They were looking in large part for the author to take the subject at hand (generally some sort of psychology paper or article), show an understanding and provide a reaction. In this case, the TA (a non-binary person) provided a paper about how people with nonconforming binary characteristics were oftentimes mocked or bullied and that we needed to be more inclusive to them. Sounds a bit self-serving to me.

Obviously, Fulnecky's reaction was not what the TA was looking for. Apparently, the assignment was to accept the premise of the article as correct and then jump on the bandwagon and write about how to support these people with nonconforming binary characteristics and make things better for them. But of course, that is only "one" reaction, and reactions are not by nature right or wrong. They just are. Certainly, Fulnecky was pushing the envelope here, and she had to know it would be seen as offensive to the TA, but sometimes that is the point of these types of things, or at least it once was.

Now, of course, this led to about 200-300 students protesting the decision of the school and demanding that the TA be reinstated. That being said, 200-300 students protesting does not seem like that many for a campus of over 35,000 students.

My last point here is that Fulnecky is a scholarship athlete and an academic all American. She is consistent dean's list student who had an average of 97% on the previous reaction papers. It is doubtful that she went from being a stellar writer being given top scores all semester to suddenly writing a paper that deserved a zero based on writing skills. Regardless of the denials from the TA and the professor, this paper was graded a zero based on the fact that they didn't like the content. Thus, the reason why the school sided with the student rather than the TA.