OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
3:25 PM – Friday, December 5, 2025
A transgender-identifying graduate instructor at the University of Oklahoma has been placed on administrative leave after giving a student a failing grade on a psychology assignment. The student’s essay quoted the Bible to argue that there are only two genders, male and female, while describing the idea of multiple genders as a “lie.”
In the paper, the student also adamantly rejected gender stereotypes as being contrary to God’s design.
After failing the student, the instructor, Mel Curth, a biological male who uses she/they pronouns, cited the essay’s reliance on personal ideology over empirical evidence, failure to address the assignment prompt, and its “offensive” language as reasons for the grade.
The incident occurred late last month and went viral after being shared by the school’s Turning Point USA chapter on Thanksgiving. The university later confirmed the instructor’s leave of absence last Sunday, pending a discrimination investigation filed by the student on religious grounds.
The student, Samantha Fulnecky, 20, explained that she received zero points on a 650-word written assignment worth 25 points total, being 3% of her overall grade. The assignment asked students to respond to an academic study of gender norms associated with bullying among middle school students.
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“God created men in the image of His courage and strength, and He created women in the image of His beauty. He intentionally created women differently than men and we should live our lives with that in mind,” Fulnecky wrote in her essay, which was received by The Oklahoman.
“It is frustrating to me when I read articles like this and discussion posts from my classmates of so many people trying to conform to the same mundane opinion, so they do not step on people’s toes. I think that is a cowardly and insincere way to live,” she argued.
Curth later stated that he believed Fulnecky’s paper failed to “answer the questions for this assignment, contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive.”
“While you are entitled to your own personal beliefs, there is an appropriate time or place to implement them in your reflections. I encourage all students to question or challenge the course material with other empirical findings or testable hypotheses, but using your own personal beliefs to argue against the findings of not only this article, but the findings of countless articles across psychology, biology, sociology, etc. is not best practice,” the instructor stated.
“You may disagree with this, but that doesn’t change the fact that every major psychological, medical, pediatric, and psychiatric association in the United States acknowledges that, biologically and psychologically, sex and gender is neither binary nor fixed.”
The university confirmed that Curth had been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation, following a formal discrimination complaint filed by Fulnecky. The university also ensured that the zero on the assignment would not affect the student’s final grade or academic record.
“OU remains firmly committed to fairness, respect and protecting every student’s right to express sincerely held religious beliefs,” the university wrote in an email on Wednesday. “Clearly this professor lacks the intellectual maturity to set her own bias aside and take grading seriously. Professors like this are the very reason conservatives can’t voice their beliefs in the classroom. Kuddos to Samantha for leading by example and standing up for what she believes in.”
Turning Point USA, the conservative student leadership organization founded by late activist Charlie Kirk, weighed in on the matter, defending Fulnecky’s unapologetic response.
“We at Turning Point OU stand with Samantha. We should not be letting mentally ill professors around students,” said TPUSA OU in a post on X. “
“In Genesis, God said that it is not good for man to be alone, so He created a helper for man (which is a woman),” Fulnecky wrote in the purportedly offensive paper. “Many people assume the word “helper” in this context to be condescending and offensive to women. However, the original word in Hebrew is ‘ezer kenegdo’ and that directly translates to ‘helper equal to.’”
“Additionally, God describes Himself in the Bible using ‘ezer kenegdo,’ or ‘helper,’ and He describes His Holy Spirit as our helper as well. This shows the importance God places on the role of the helper (women’s roles).”
“God does not view women as less significant than men,” she argued, emphasizing the intentionality with which God created women, according to the Bible, who are also made “in the image of His beauty.”
“If leaning into that role mean I am ‘following gender stereotypes,’ then I am happy to be following a stereotype that aligns with the gifts and abilities God gave me as a woman,” Fulnecky added.
The school’s investigation into Fulnecky’s discrimination complaint is still ongoing.
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