Samantha Fulecky – Photo: her own instagram account, Illustrated by Todd Franson
In late November, the University of Oklahoma placed Mel Curth on administrative leave after the transgender graduate teaching assistant gave a student a zero on an essay about gender roles.
The essay cited the Bible to defend traditional gender roles and described transgender people as “demonic.” Curth and the course’s instructor, Megan Waldron, said the paper failed to meet basic academic standards due to a lack of empirical evidence. Both noted that the paper cited no scholarly sources and failed to offer an evidence-based critique of the assigned article, which argued that children who do not conform to rigid gender stereotypes are more likely to face bullying and negative mental health outcomes.
The student, Samantha Fulnecky, appealed the grade and filed a religious discrimination complaint with the university, prompting an investigation that the school says has now concluded.
Last week, the university fired Curth.
The university has declined to release the findings of its investigation, prompting criticism and speculation that the outcome was predetermined.
University officials said the grade appeal was decided in Fulnecky’s favor, with the zero removed from her average and not counted against her. The university also suggested that Curth allowed her personal beliefs to influence her grading, according to Lawton-based ABC affiliate KSWO.
“Based on an examination of the graduate teaching assistant’s prior grading standards and patterns, as well as the graduate teaching assistant’s own statements related to this matter, it was determined that the graduate teaching assistant was arbitrary in the grading of this specific paper,” the university said in a statement. “The graduate teaching assistant will no longer have instructional duties at the University.”
The university said it “believes strongly in both its faculty’s rights to teach with academic freedom and integrity and its students’ right to receive an education that is free from a lecturer’s impermissible evaluative standards.”
The University of Oklahoma chapter of the American Association of University Professors criticized the university’s decision, particularly its refusal to release the findings of the investigation.
“Essentially, nothing is new here,” the group said in a statement. “OU claims without providing any supporting or specific reasons why Mel Curth was removed. They have claimed in the past in press releases that this was due to supposed and disturbing claims of ‘religious discrimination’ that clash with academic freedom. Is it now? Instead, they hide behind vague statements and essentially assertions of ‘trust us.’ At this point, they need to show us and not tell us. And once again, OU is making an employment decision public, which is inflaming the situation.”
Fulnecky told Oklahoma City-based CBS affiliate KWTV that she wrote the essay in about 30 minutes while rushing to leave with a friend to attend a university play. Transgender journalist Parker Molloy later criticized the interview in a post on X, saying Fulnecky’s remarks suggested she had not read the article she was assigned to critique.
Molloy also addressed the controversy on her Substack earlier this month, arguing that it reflects a broader pattern in which right-wing and socially conservative actors manufacture or amplify disputes involving transgender people to pressure institutions into capitulating.
“This is an industry now,” Molloy wrote. “There are jobs, salaries, speaker bureaus, and career tracks. The right is always looking for new faces to put on this movement — young, photogenic people who can be positioned as victims of trans overreach. The detransitioner who regrets her surgery. The swimmer who tied with a trans woman. The Christian student whose essay got a bad grade.
“The individual controversies are just vehicles to get there. Each one is designed to make an example of a trans person, to signal to every other trans person in education or healthcare or any public-facing role: this could happen to you. Keep your head down. Better yet, leave.”
Tyler Getchell of Jacksonville, Florida, has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly shooting and partially paralyzing his neighbor, Kyle McFarlane, during an argument over what Getchell believed was trespassing.
McFarlane told police he was gathering discarded furniture for a bonfire on November 22 when Getchell and his girlfriend came outside and yelled at him to get off their property, First Coast News reported.
According to the police report, video footage shows McFarlane standing on a property easement -- not on his neighbors' land -- just before the shooting.
Organizers of the "MAGA Invasion" meetup at Disneyland in Anaheim, California appear to have picked a date that coincides with "Mini Gay Days," an LGBTQ fan event, setting the stage for potential confrontations.
On November 19, a Southern California conservative group called 805 Patriots -- which also operates a Facebook page under the name "SoCal Patriots" -- announced a meetup of "like-minded patriots" at Disneyland as part of an unsanctioned event planned for February 28, 2026.
One organizer said the purpose of the "Patriots in the Park" event is to "go have some fun by triggering as many liberals as possible" at Disneyland.
Ahead of Transgender Day of Remembrance on Thursday, November 20, Advocates for Trans Equality, a national organization, released a report honoring the 58 known transgender people who have died in the United States over the past year.
First held in 1999, Transgender Day of Remembrance was initially intended to mourn those transgender people lost to violence. The first organizers memorialized Rita Hester, killed in November 1998 in Boston, and Chanelle Pickett, murdered in November 1995 in Watertown, Mass.
Since that first memorial service, cities and regions throughout the world have adopted November 20 as a day to commemorate transgender and nonbinary individuals who have died -- whether due to murder, suicide, or natural causes.
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