The University of Oklahoma gets one wrong
The institution mishandles an epistemological clash
Ick. Ick. Ick.
The University of Oklahoma has placed graduate student instructor Mel Curth on leave after they gave a conservative religious student, Samantha Fulnecky, a zero for an essay “assert[ing] gender roles were biblically ordained and call[ing] gender nonconformity [sic] ‘demonic.’” Fulnecky filed a religious discrimination complaint against Curth, who had “noted that they were not deducting points because of Fulnecky’s beliefs but because she failed to answer the assigned questions and heavily relied on personal ideology rather than empirical evidence and because the essay was at times offensive.”[1]
This isn’t just about transgenderism. From an epistemological perspective, Fulnecky invoked a conservative religious way of knowing. Curth, on the other hand, seems to have been invoking positivism—another way of knowing, generally approved in a university.
Positivism is, for all practical purposes, scientific method, but it, too, is inherently, to some degree ideological. It takes as a foundational premise that human beings can accurately perceive reality, whether directly or by way of instrumentation. It discounts that all such observations occur through a perceptual filter in the brain which interprets and synthesizes the data of the senses.
Conservatives, however, discount positivism as ‘temporal knowledge,’ inferior to ‘permanent knowledge.’ ‘Permanent knowledge’ is, as I discussed in my dissertation,[2] inherently ideological—it takes some ideology, be it capitalism, nationalism, entitlement, white supremacy, tradition, or something else as foundational.
Positivism tends to be quantitative and to dismiss qualitative inquiry as ‘subjective.’ It asserts ‘objectivity,’ which doesn’t actually exist because all observations are, some way, somehow subjective, subject to that perceptual filter, which is vulnerable to various forms of bias.
Politically, neoliberal ideology draws on positivism. It is still ideological, entailing assumptions about the relationships between workers and employers, the rich and the poor, and the proper role of government. Neoliberals claim to base their ideology on economics and ‘free market’ capitalism (whenever you see the word ‘free,’ ask for whom, to do what, to whom, at whose expense), but most economists are themselves ideological, embracing the same foundational claims as biases in their allegedly ‘objective’ observations.
As a conservative religious student, Fulnecky likely draws upon a (selective) reading of the Bible as ‘permanent knowledge,’ superseding the ‘temporal’ empirical evidence her instructor, Curth, demanded. And in imposing a suspension on Curth, the University of Oklahoma has, at least provisionally, also privileged that (selective) reading.
As a public institution, the University of Oklahoma should—emphasis on should—be secular. It has no business privileging a religious way of knowing. Fulnecky likely should pursue her education in a religious university, not a secular one, though even at such an institution, she may find that not all professors and instructors share her views on gender. Some religious folks, after all, emphasize love for their neighbors over judgment.
That the University of Oklahoma has chosen to embrace, even if only provisionally, that highly subjective judgment—and that other universities may feel pressure to behave similarly—is a sad reflection on the state of academia today.
[1] Lauren Nutall, “University of Oklahoma places transgender instructor on leave after student fails assignment,” Instagram, December 2, 2025, https://www.instagram.com/p/DRxxFGOjZdi/
[2] Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).