The University of Oklahoma has removed a second instructor in connection with a controversy that erupted after a student was given a zero grade for a paper on gender that cited the Bible as its primary source.
This time, the university said it removed a teacher for encouraging students to support a campus protest over the earlier suspension.
The controversy began when the student, a junior named Samantha Fulnecky, complained about the failing grade she received on the paper. The assignment was to read a scholarly article on “gender typicality, peer relations, and mental health” and then write thoughtfully about some aspect of the article.
In her essay, Ms. Fulnecky cited the Bible and wrote that “the lie that there are multiple genders” was “demonic.”
The article she was reacting to discussed adolescents’ use of teasing to enforce gender norms. “I do not necessarily see this as a problem,” she wrote in her paper. “God made male and female and made us differently from each other on purpose and for a purpose.”
The instructor grading the assignment gave it a zero, saying it “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.”
After the student complained, the instructor who graded the paper was put on administrative leave.
The campus chapter of Turning Point USA, the organization founded by Charlie Kirk, posted on Instagram that the second instructor, was removed from teaching after promising to excuse the absences of students who attended a protest on Friday over the first instructor’s suspension.
The chapter president, Kalib Magana, filed a complaint against the instructor, according to the Instagram posting, which included a picture of the instructor wearing a T-shirt that says “Protect trans kids.”
The instructor could not be reached for comment.
The university said in an online statement that the second instructor would be placed on administrative leave. It declined a request to confirm the instructor’s identity.
According to the Turning Point posting, the newest twist in the controversy began last Wednesday, when the second instructor, who teaches composition, urged students in a first-year composition class to skip class on Friday to support the protest. “Under the slogan “Sources, not Sermons,” the protest was organized to demand that the first instructor be reinstated. The university has not identified that instructor publicly, either.
According to his complaint, Mr. Magana, a student in the composition class, asked to be excused from class to counterprotest, but was told that he would not be excused to do so on his own, only if a large, documented group was organized. Mr. Magana told the university that he believed he had been the victim of viewpoint discrimination and freedom of speech violations.
In a statement, the University of Oklahoma said it supported the decision by the director of the school’s First Year Composition program to suspend the second instructor.
“The university classroom exists to teach students how to think, not what to think,” it said, adding that instructors have a special obligation to “ensure that a classroom is never used to grant preferential treatment based on personal political beliefs.”
A spokesman for the university declined to supply any further details.
A statewide newspaper, The Oklahoman, reported that the protest on the university’s campus in Norman, Okla., drew hundreds of students and faculty members.
Stephanie Saul reports on colleges and universities, with a recent focus on the dramatic changes in college admissions and the debate around diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education.
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