The point of a research paper is to support a topic with evidence. Some research papers do include the writer’s opinions, but they must always be scholarly in nature. It makes sense then that using your religion to answer the question in a research paper would be inappropriate. But a University Oklahoma student thought she could do just that, and she was actually shocked when she received a zero on her paper. What else would the outcome have been?
According to KOCO 5 News, which shared an interview with the student on TikTok, Samantha Fulnecky didn’t quite understand the assignment when she decided to bring religion into a research paper by citing the Bible. However, Samantha tells an interviewer, “I view all my opinions in the world through the Bible.” Samantha is now claiming religious discrimination against her teacher, who said her article “lacked empirical evidence.”
Samantha’s professor said the article is “offensive” for including religious statements. For example, Samantha claims “God created male and female” and that anything else is “glorifying to the enemy.”
One of Samantha’s bizarre, conservative-backed thoughts includes, “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.”
Samantha tries to backpedal and say she didn’t “mean” for her words to be offensive. But how do you take a phrase like that any other way? It only adds fuel to the fire that is the constant hate towards transgender people by conservatives.
In a shocking turn, Samantha even says she wouldn’t mind having a transgender teacher, but this comes with a strong ‘but’ at the end. She says she would only accept having a teacher who is personally transgender if “they’re able to separate their, um, kind of beliefs in things from grading,” accusing her teacher of having a biased opinion, given her teacher’s own identity.
It’s honestly astounding to me that she thinks anything she wrote in her paper was acceptable for a research article. But apparently, OU doesn’t know whose side to take because they ultimately placed the instructor on administrative leave.
One commenter pointed out what we’re all thinking, “The essay asked for RESEARCH. She practically welcomed the zero with open arms.”
Another person stated, “She did NOT do the assignment. There is NO empirical evidence in that assignment whatsoever. Nothing about her entire essay was scholarly.”
It’s clear to me that Samantha likely just wanted to rile up her teacher and push her religious agenda onto somebody who would listen. And the fact that her teacher also identifies as transgender is an easy scapegoat for her.
