Samantha Fulnecky is the Riley Gaines of Charlie Kirks

by annieli for ANTIMAGA

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Saturday, Dec. 06, 2025 Saturday, Dec. 06, 2025 at 6:22:00am PST

A set-up by reactionaries who believe that sex is biological, gender is ideology, and that if they ask people what women are, they will advance Christian Nationalism.

This “pre-med” student wrote a reactionary rather than a reaction paper to an academic article and likely didn’t want to rewrite the A.I. version of her paper, which even without being returned to the student for revision, would have had a marginal effect on her overall course grade. The University of Oklahoma evidently needs no “honor system” since graduate student instructors, like adjunct professors, are easy targets for such resistance.

Responding to a scholarly article that discussed teasing as a way to enforce gender norms, the University of Oklahoma student wrote, “I do not necessarily see this as a problem.”

A University of Oklahoma student says she is the victim of religious discrimination because a psychology instructor gave her a zero for an essay that cited the Bible and said that “the lie that there are multiple genders” is “demonic.”

The complaint by the student, Samantha Fulnecky, a junior, follows a series of similar conflicts at colleges around the country over how professors should talk about gender in the classroom, a battle in which each side insists it is protecting academic freedom and First Amendment rights.

The instructor who flunked Ms. Fulnecky on the essay has been placed on administrative leave while the school investigates the episode, according to a statement the University of Oklahoma posted on social media. The instructor is a graduate student at the university.

Dozens of professors have lost their jobs or been disciplined in recent months over issues related to political speech, often because of posts on social media. Texas A&M University fired a faculty member who was accused of teaching a course that recognized more than two genders, after a video of her discussing gender in class was posted online.

In the University of Oklahoma case, the school conducted a formal grade appeal process, which “resulted in steps to ensure no academic harm to the student from the graded assignment,” the school said.

Ms. Fulnecky, who is 20, said in an interview Tuesday that university officials told her the poor mark on the essay will not factor into her grade. She had gotten good grades and had enjoyed the class before getting a zero on what seemed like a routine assignment, she said. “We have been doing these reaction papers all semester,” she said. Ms. Fulnecky is a psychology major and pre-med, and intends to go to medical school, she said.

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She failed to complete an assignment and got a participation trophy.
— Zach D Roberts (@zdroberts) December 5, 2025

GROK

@knarz's reply sarcastically deems the Oklahoma House's recognition of student Samantha Fulnecky "embarrassing," attaching her professor's feedback screenshot that cites academic flaws like contradictions and lack of evidence over her biblical references in a gender norms essay.

The original post celebrates Fulnecky's "courage" against perceived higher education bias, but the reply highlights the grade deduction stemmed from the paper's failure to address assignment questions and reliance on personal ideology in a scientific class.

This exchange reflects broader 2025 tensions in Oklahoma over academic grading and religious expression, where Fulnecky's viral story garnered national support yet divided opinions on whether the F was discriminatory or justified.