Oklahoma fires instructor over gender essay grade
What happened
The University of Oklahoma has removed a graduate student after she gave a student a failing grade on a psychology paper that cited the Bible as proof that “belief in multiple genders” is “demonic.” A review determined that the instructor, Mel Cuth, was “arbitrary in the grading of this specific paper,” the university said Monday, and she “will no longer have instructional duties.”
Who said what
The junior psychology major who wrote the essay appealed her zero grade and filed a religious discrimination claim. “Her case became a flashpoint in the ongoing debate over academic freedom on college campuses” after the university suspended Cuth and struck the student’s failing grade, The Associated Press said. Conservative groups and commentators made it an “online cause, highlighting” the junior’s argument “she’d been punished for expressing conservative Christian views.”
The University of Oklahoma’s Graduate Student Senate called Cuth’s removal “reprehensible.” The failed essay, meant to discuss academic research on gender expression and bullying in middle school, included a “prayer” that America’s youth “would not believe the lies being spread from Satan” about multiple genders. Cuth responded that the paper “does not answer the questions for the assignment,” relies on “personal ideology” and “is at times offensive,” though “I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs,” according to a screenshot posted online by the school’s Turning Point USA chapter.
What next?
Cuth said through a lawyer yesterday she was “considering all of her legal remedies, including appealing this decision.”