Conservative activists and politicians have rallied around a college student who received a zero on an essay. Some grad students said they’re worried about what happens next.
The assignment called for students to write a clear and thoughtful 650 word response to a scholarly article about gender expectations in society. According to screenshots shared by Turning Point USA’s local chapter, Fulnecky wrote in her essay that the article irritated her, and described how God created men and women differently. “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,” she wrote.
Mel Curth, a graduate teaching assistant, wrote as part of the grading process that she had deducted points because Fulnecky submitted a “paper that does not answer the questions for this assignment, contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive,” according to the screenshots of her messages.
Quotes and links are directly from the article.
It appears to me that the student did not complete the assignment according to the instructions. Rather, she attempted to generally contrast the conclusions of gender studies with the Bible. Although, personally, I might have thrown in a few points for word count, spacing, and completion which is more than some students are capable of.
It’s pretty disturbing how deliberately and blindly obtuse people become when given the opportunity to cheer for their team.
Her only source was the Bible, and she didn’t even cite that properly. The instructor who set the essay concurred with the TA’s assessment, and then the school suspended both of them for doing their jobs properly.
This is a mistake that should surface and get corrected in high school or earlier if the education system is working properly. Around 14 I bombed a writing assignment because my response was all personal feelings rather than reasoning and evidence. My teacher told me he agreed with me personally, but I did not actually complete the assignment as asked. I never did that again. Though I am not entirely convinced this wasn’t deliberate to create a culture war story.
Quotes and links are directly from the article.
It appears to me that the student did not complete the assignment according to the instructions. Rather, she attempted to generally contrast the conclusions of gender studies with the Bible. Although, personally, I might have thrown in a few points for word count, spacing, and completion which is more than some students are capable of.
It’s pretty disturbing how deliberately and blindly obtuse people become when given the opportunity to cheer for their team.
Her only source was the Bible, and she didn’t even cite that properly. The instructor who set the essay concurred with the TA’s assessment, and then the school suspended both of them for doing their jobs properly.
This is a mistake that should surface and get corrected in high school or earlier if the education system is working properly. Around 14 I bombed a writing assignment because my response was all personal feelings rather than reasoning and evidence. My teacher told me he agreed with me personally, but I did not actually complete the assignment as asked. I never did that again. Though I am not entirely convinced this wasn’t deliberate to create a culture war story.