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About Samantha Fulnecky, Freedom of Religion, and Empirical Reasoning

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In December 2025, Samantha Fulnecky, a psychology student at the University of Oklahoma, submitted an assignment about gender roles in a course about lifespan development. Her essay mostly quoted the Bible and frames belief in multiple genders as "demonic." The graduate teaching assistant grading the essay gave Fulnecky zero points out of a possible twenty five because the essay ignores the assignment's prompt and uses "personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class." The teaching assistants grading the assignment uses she/they pronouns and identifies as transgender. Another instructor, who is cisgender, agreed with the grade and comments that the essay "should not be considered as a completion of the assignment." Fulnecky argued that the assignment did not require students to cite empirical evidence, claims this is religious discrimination, and files a complaint. The university reviewed the case, removed the zero from her grade so it does not hurt her final mark, and removed the graduate teaching assistant from instructional duties.

The Writting Assignment

The instructions for the writting assignment. transcript follows.
View or hide the text of the writting assignment.

Lesson 3.3: Reaction Paper: Gender Typicality, Peer Relations, and Mental Health

Due Nov 9 by 11:59pm     Points 25     Submitting a file upload
Available Aug 25 at 12am - Nov 9 at 11:59pm

This assignment was locked Nov 9 at 11:59pm.

You must write a 650 words (body of text), double-spaced reaction paper demonstrating that you read the assigned article, and includes a thoughtful reaction to the material presented in the article. Points will be deducted when papers are deficient in any of these areas. I will deduct 10 points if your paper is between 620 and 649 words, and I will not give credit for papers under 620 words. Papers not turned in by the deadline will not receive credit.

Please remember that your reaction paper should not be a summary, but rather a thoughtful discussion of some aspect of the article. Possible approaches to reaction papers include:

  1. A discussion of why you feel the topic is important and worthy of study (or not)
  2. An application of the study or results to your own experiences
  3. An application of the study or results to observations about other behaviors
  4. Linking the objectives or findings from the assigned article to other domains of development or other findings that we read about or discuss in class
  5. A suggestion for further studies or experiments that might help researchers better understand the topic being studied
  6. Alternate interpretations of the researchers' findings
  7. A discussion of how development in this domain might proceed differently at other developmental stages
  8. Your own thoughts about how development proceeds in the domain being researched in the article

There are other possibilities as well. The best reaction papers illustrate that students have read the assigned materials and engaged in critical thinking about some aspect of the article.

Formatting requirements: 12-point Times New Roman or Calibri font, one-inch margins on all sides.

GRADING: Reaction papers are graded on a 25-point scale, and are evaluated based on the following:

  1. Does the paper show a clear tie-in to the assigned article? (10 points)
  2. Does the paper present a thoughtful reaction or response to the article, rather than a summary? (10 points)
  3. Is the paper clearly written? (5 points)

ARTICLE LINK: Gender Typicality, Peer Relations, and Mental Health

Reaction Papers
CriteriaRatingspts
Clear tie to Article
Is there a clear link back to the assigned article? Can the reader assess whether the student has read the assigned article? 		  10 pts
Reaction Content
Does the paper provide a reaction/reflection/discussion of some aspect of the article, rather than a summary?		   10 pts
Clarity of Writing
Are the main ideas and thoughts organized into a coherent discussion? Is the writing clear enough to follow without multiple re-readings? 		  5 pts

Total Points: 25

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Abstract of the Assigned Reading

"Relations Among Gender Typicality, Peer Relations, and Mental Health During Early Adolescence" by Jennifer A. Jewell and Christia Spears Brown (First published: 26 June 2013):

The current study examines whether being high in gender typicality is associated with popularity, whether being low in gender typicality is associated with rejection/teasing, and whether teasing due to low gender typicality mediates the association with negative mental health. Middle school children (34 boys and 50 girls) described hypothetical popular and rejected/teased peers, and completed self-report measures about their own gender typicality, experiences with gender-based teasing, depressive symptoms, anxiety, self-esteem, and body image. Participants also completed measures about their peers' gender typicality, popularity, and likeability. Results indicated that popular youth were described as more gender typical than rejected/teased youth. Further, being typical for one's gender significantly predicted being rated as popular by peers, and this relationship was moderated by gender. Finally, low gender typicality predicted more negative mental health outcomes for boys. These relationships were, at times, mediated by experiences with gender-based teasing, suggesting that negative mental health outcomes may be a result of the social repercussions of being low in gender typicality rather than a direct result of low typicality.

Josh Olds writting for the Baptist News Global notes Nowhere in their research do Jewell and Brown discuss transgender identity, nonbinary identity, gender transition, pronouns or anything adjacent to contemporary culture-war debates. Rather, their focus is gender typicality - how closely a child’s visible behavior matches peer expectations.

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The Text of Fulnecky's Essay

This article was very thought provoking and caused me to thoroughly evaluate the idea of gender and the role it plays in our society. The article discussed peers using teasing as a way to enforce gender norms. I do not necessarily see this as a problem. God made male and female and made us differently from each other on purpose and for a purpose. God is very intentional with what He makes, and I believe trying to change that would only do more harm. Gender roles and tendencies should not be considered “stereotypes”. Women naturally want to do womanly things because God created us with those womanly desires in our hearts. The same goes for men. God created men in the image of His courage and strength, and He created women in the image of His beauty. He intentionally created women differently than men and we should live our lives with that in mind.

It is frustrating to me when I read articles like this and discussion posts from my classmates of so many people trying to conform to the same mundane opinion, so they do not step on people’s toes. I think that is a cowardly and insincere way to live. It is important to use the freedom of speech we have been given in this country, and I personally believe that eliminating gender in our society would be detrimental, as it pulls us farther from God’s original plan for humans. It is perfectly normal for kids to follow gender “stereotypes” because that is how God made us. The reason so many girls want to feel womanly and care for others in a motherly way is not because they feel pressured to fit into social norms. It is because God created and chose them to reflect His beauty and His compassion in that way. In Genesis, God says that it is not good for man to be alone, so He created a helper for man (which is a woman). Many people assume the word “helper” in this context to be condescending and offensive to women. However, the original word in Hebrew is “ezer kenegdo” and that directly translates to “helper equal to”. Additionally, God describes Himself in the Bible using “ezer kenegdo”, or “helper”, and He describes His Holy Spirit as our Helper as well. This shows the importance God places on the role of the helper (women’s roles). God does not view women as less significant than men. He created us with such intentionally and care and He made women in his image of being a helper, and in the image of His beauty. If leaning into that role means I am “following gender stereotypes” then I am happy to be following a stereotype that aligns with the gifts and abilities God gave me as a woman.

I do not think men and women are pressured to be more masculine or feminine. I strongly disagree with the idea from the article that encouraging acceptance of diverse gender expressions could improve students’ confidence. 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. I do not want kids to be teased or bullied in school. However, pushing the lie that everyone has their own truth and everyone can do whatever they want and be whoever they want is not biblical whatsoever. The Bible says that our lives are not our own but that our lives and bodies belong to the Lord for His glory. I live my life based on this truth and firmly believe that there would be less gender issues and insecurities in children if they were raised knowing that they do not belong to themselves, but they belong to the Lord.

Overall, reading articles such as this one encourage me to one day raise my children knowing that they have a Heavenly Father who loves them and cherishes them deeply and that having their identity firmly rooted in who He is will give them the satisfaction and acceptance that the world can never provide for them. My prayer for the world and specifically for American society and youth is that they would not believe the lies being spread from Satan that make them believe they are better off as another gender than what God made them. I pray that they feel God’s love and acceptance as who He originally created them to be.

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Criticsm

Josh Olds observes Fulnecky’s reflection misreads the article by assuming it is about transgender or nonbinary ideology, when in fact the article does not address those topics at all. Terms like “gender atypicality” refer to children liking nonstereotypical activities - boys who enjoy art, girls who prefer sports (and this is where we should note that Fulnecky is a member of OU’s women’s tennis team) - not to children questioning their gender. The reflection attributes views to the article the authors never express.

Christopher Line, the Legal Counsel for the Freedom From Religion writes to the Office of the President of the University to argue that the University is not unholding its role as a place of learning:

It is our understanding that Samantha Fulnecky, a junior at the University of Oklahoma, submitted an essay that was supposed to discuss “how people are perceived based on societal expectations of gender,” but instead wrote an essay based purely on her own personal religious beliefs against the notion that there are multiple genders, which she referred to as “demonic.” Her essay is available online and shows that she did not address the assigned article, did not cite1 or engage with the research, contradicted herself, and relied entirely on personal religious assertions rather than academic reasoning. The assignment required students to demonstrate that they had read the article, grappled with its content, and offered a critical response grounded in empirical reasoning-the basic expectation of any university-level psychology course.

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