Naomi Girson | opinions editor

The University of Oklahoma is all over the news right now after Samantha Fulnecky was given a zero on her reaction paper to a study on how popularity is related to gender typicality in adolescence.

She is accusing the school of religious discrimination. Though I would argue her unsourced references to the Bible and poor writing were more than likely the real cause of the poor grade.

All signs point to a publicity stunt on her part. She wanted a big blow-up and attention from conservative organizations like Turning Point USA.

Fulnecky is a junior psychology major at the university , the course was a sophomore level psychology class that happened to have a transgender teaching assistant .

According to AP News, the requirements for the assignment were on a 25 point scale: 10 points for a clear tie-in to the study, 10 points for presenting a thoughtful reaction/response to the study, as opposed to a summary and 5 points for a clearly written paper.

Reading Fulnecky’s paper I found many glaring issues from the jump, without even addressing the offensive and sometimes contradictory nature of her reaction to the study.

The paper has no heading, title or indents. There are sentence fragments and run-ons, not to mention the grammar. She didn’t use any sources, only numerous vague references to the Bible without proper citation.

Fulnecky’s rebuttal was that the assignment didn’t ask her specifically for evidence, which is true, but it asks her for a thoughtful response. As a junior in college she should know that failing to giving appropriate citations is plagiarism.

KFOR, an Oklahoma news station, asked Fulnecky about the mechanics of the paper and if she regrets the way it reads.

“Looking back, do you wish you had written a better paper? One without the grammatical errors, run-on sentences, and whatnot?” KFOR asked her.

“I think I should have gotten 100. I’ve got 100 on every single essay I’ve written in class,” Fulnecky said. She argued last week that her point of view should not have been reflected in the grading.

Fulnecky is pushing all her chips in for this one, and the paper is out there to read. Personally, I would have maybe made sure all my grammar was up to par before I hit submit.

“He created us with such intentionally [sic] and care and He made women in his image of being a helper, and in the image of His beauty,” Fulnecky wrote.

What’s worse, she was very likely a good student in her other classes up until this point. According to her Instagram, she is a member of the Oklahoma University chapter of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, which has a GPA requirement and high academic standing, according to their official website.

“…Each chapter is expected to maintain academic standards equal to or higher than their university’s or college’s all-sorority GPA. Additionally, each chapter establishes a GPA requirement for active members,” said the official website.

If she was writing like this in all her classes, I strongly doubt she would make a viable candidate for her sorority.

But Fulnecky is taking her 15 minutes of fame all the way to an investigation, meanwhile, her paper pushes Christian beliefs onto all humans, though she goes to a public, secular university.

For the hoopla it’s causing, the assignment was reportedly only 3% of her final grade in the class, and according to AP News, the school has clarified it will not affect her final grade.

I have a prediction that Fulnecky will follow the path of Riley Gaines, an NCAA competitive swimmer turned conservative activist.

Back in 2022, Gaines tied in 5th place at a race with Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer. Immediately after the race, Gaines had kind words for Thomas.

“I am in full support of her and full support of her transition and her swimming career and everything like that because there’s no doubt that she works hard too, but she’s just abiding by the rules that the NCAA put in place, and that’s the issue,” Gaines said according to the Daily Wire.

More recently, she is fighting against trans rights in more niche subjects. According to Gaines’s post on X on Nov. 28, 2023, she no longer identifies trans women as women. She made a response to a post from Erin Reed, a journalist and a transgender rights advocate.

“Hey Riley, remember that time you advocated for banning trans women from women’s chess?” Reed asked.

“Of course I do. I worked alongside leadership within to make sure of it. Women’s opportunities are meant for women, full stop. Men shouldn’t be in women’s category in chess, pool or any sport,” Gaines responded.

Within a year, Gaines went from frustratingly blaming an organization to misgendering every single transgender woman and somehow claiming women and men play chess differently.

Fulnecky spent 630 words (when the requirement was 650 words) spewing hateful rhetoric toward transgender people. Instead of addressing the assigned topic of children facing bullying on the basis of gender identity, Fulnecky took it upon herself to write about how she doesn’t think it’s right to not identify with your “biological gender.”

It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t agree with the study, her reaction isn’t even about bullying.

Even if her argument were that teasing for gender identity crisises in middle school is perfectly acceptable under a notion of conforming as such in God’s image, she’d still be failing to defend that.

I just think if she were truly approaching this from the perspective of Jesus, she’d be doing it with more empathy. We were all in middle school once, after all.

If Fulnecky can prove me wrong, I’m all ears, but, of course, she doesn’t seem to have a particular affinity for citing her sources, so I cannot really trust her credibility.

Fulnecky claimed all kinds of malarkey, like how she wasn’t into politics before this, yet she is now posted all over TPUSA. She claimed that she didn’t know her TA was transgender, but I have a feeling the extreme conservatism and wannabe-activism is not far ahead of us.

Fulnecky is another sad excuse to demonize transgender people, so I think we just need to stop listening to her, because I have a feeling she is about to get a lot louder.

Naomi Girson can be reached at girsonn@duq.edu