WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Flyover Features: Religious Discrimination or Shoddy Writing?

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Emma and Sophia discuss the case of Junior Psychology and Pre-med student Samantha Fulnecky, who claims her poor grade on a poor essay is a case of religious discrimination.

Welcome back to Flyover Features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.7 FM, a witty radio show where we discuss current events and culture through the lens of an article. I'm Emma Verini and I'm here with Sophia Mant. Today we will be discussing a reason article, and I think this is the first time we've ever discussed a reason article entitled University of Oklahoma student is justifiably shocked at sudden expectation she be a good writer by, maybe you can help me out with this name Christian Britchie or Britchie. Wait, let me look at it. Christian Britsy. We'll just say that. See, he was in the office when I was as I interned at Reason Magazine, a libertarian outlet in Washington, D.C. over the summer. And Christian is an interesting guy. He is a Christian. And he also writes on like a lot of the times the government doing really bad and unethical things in regards to housing and zoning laws. So yeah, why don't you start by telling us some of what the piece is about? So just for some context, there was a girl who blew up in the news recently because she got a zero on one of her articles or one of her essays submission.

and she is claiming that it is because of religious discrimination that this paper that she wrote for a psychology class got such a bad grade because she referenced, not cited, the Bible. And I think it's just definitely something worth discussing, especially at Hillsdale. I think we have a good perspective on this sort of thing because you look at some of the grades that kids here get on their English papers, for instance. And you would think, wow, maybe these kids are being discriminated against religiously. And it's like, no, you just didn't write your best paper and that's okay. Everybody writes a B paper every once in a while or just like gets a even worse grade than a B. But I think here, if you don't write a good paper, you're not going to get a good

grade yes so essentially what emma's getting at is the girl's name she's a junior Samantha fulnecke wrote a paper in my opinion it's awful horribly written you know it's a psychology paper she doesn't cite her sources so she uses the bible but she doesn't even like cite the bible lots of grammatical mistakes and the point was to respond to an article and um the article was about uh i actually read it uh the psychology article uh children and how just gender norms and teasing affect child development. And, you know, I'm pretty right of center, but I'm not going to deny that it's obviously true that my personal belief is that there is nature.

There are differences between people, between men and women. But I do think that it's, there are cultural or social differences that affect how men and women interact with each other. I mean, that's just clear. It's why women act generally differently in other countries than others, you know, like some women are more. you would say modern and enlightenment and others are still traditional. And I think part of that is because they have a different culture. It's like kind of frankly, idiotic, I think, to deny that.

How could you? I mean, anyway, I'm ranting about this a lot. But essentially, and I'm trying to say is that apparently the TA or the professor was transgender, but the actual article itself was not out off the wall. It was not claiming there's more than two genders. It wasn't claiming anything about transgenderism. It was just saying that that affects child development. It was not a, to use the crass term, woke article. And in response to this essay that is meant to use, you know, it's scientific, like, empirical

evidence, psychology, whatever. She just rants about God's design for men and women in an essay rife with errors. And then she gets a zero and claims religious discrimination. And I'm like, dude, if I wrote this to my like conservative Christian professors, I would get an F on this. The writing

like is, it doesn't, she literally does not, for her to interrupt, she does not answer the assignment. Like she, and clearly possibly didn't even read the article or didn't understand it because she's claiming stuff about it that does not relevant to the article itself. Probably the latter. Why don't we just go ahead and actually read some of the sentences from this essay? And the listener can judge for himself whether this essay is any good or not. This article was very thought-provoking and caused me to thoroughly evaluate the idea of gender and the role it plays in our society.

Okay, fine. The article discussed peers using teasing as a way to enforce gender norms. I do not necessarily see this as a problem. Okay, here's where stuff gets really bad. 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 in quotes period outside of the quotes that's just okay 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 in the image of his courage and strength and he created women in the image of his beauty.

Okay. To briefly interrupt also, as a Christian, I believe in, like, you know, the beauty of men and women and being created for a purpose. But, like, to be pedantic, I don't think that's entirely theologically accurate or a great way of understanding it either. So it's like, if I wrote this, no, exactly. If I wrote this for a freaking theology essay, and I'm blessed to go to Hillsdale, which means that, you know, the professors really do you believe in the Bible? They'd probably, they'd probably be like, that's not exactly correct. Like, Mommy would be like, you know, he's, for context, he's Dr. Mommy. He's Lutheran, but he tries really hard to, you know, generally be fair and grade based on just traditional Christian beliefs. And like, he would probably give, but he does sometimes give points off if, you know, you say something that's not really theologically correct. And he would take points off for that. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. Yeah. It just keeps getting worse. So why don't we keep reading? Because it's worth reading. This article, by the way, Richard Henania posted it on Twitter. Yeah.

I'm not going to say I agree with everything he says. That's totally beside the point, but sometimes he does get some good, like, investigative leads on stuff. Yeah. I'll keep reading. He intentionally created women differently from 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 now it's like, what are we talking about? Like what? Okay, now we're on the topic of freedom of speech. Again, this gets worse when it's like, this is a psychology paper. Admittedly, this sounds like not super high basic standards, like just responding to the essay. But you know, you're supposed to cite stuff in psychology. And this, her comments are not, like I said, I read the actual article. They're not really relevant or related to what's said in the paper. The paper doesn't say there's not men and women. She's just ranting about stuff that's not in there. She's just, she's just being ranty. Okay. She says a lot of the same stuff over and over again, and it's not exactly

like order, like her thoughts are not coherently ordered. Like, for instance, in the second paragraph she's coming back around to the 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 social norms so now we're back at the same idea that like I think one of the most basic things I learned in high school or I think it might have even been middle school or elementary school is when you're writing an essay you want to have coherent structure to it so like you want to come up with a topic sentence for an essay and it doesn't have to be perfect to encapsulating everything you say in that paragraph, but you want it to be, everything in that

paragraph to be somewhat relevant or support the idea of the topic sentence. Like, this is the structure of an argumentative essay or even just a response essay. You don't say something and then say something different and then start a new paragraph and then say the same thing you said in the first paragraph and then repeat the same thing you said at the end of the first paragraph and the second paragraph. That's not the way it works. So this just fails to follow the most basic. structure of an essay. It's very poorly written. My sister is a freshman in high school and she can write a more coherent essay and cite stuff for it. And it bothers me too because, you know, I know I'm being a bit mean, but it's partially because I don't want to make this personal,

but it bothers me when I know people dealing with more worst cases of discrimination for stuff that I think is worse. And then she got a bad, deservedly bad grade and she's ranting and it just makes her sound conceited. But it's like, I was raised and I went to a Christian school. And like, I would get a bad grade if I couldn't cite sources or I just wasn't a coherent essay. And honestly, like, that's something that rubs me the wrong way. And it's just weird because it's like without even realizing it. And I'm going to say this because I like debating. It's like it feels like, okay, Samantha Fulnicki, I feel like you've been influenced by egalitarian liberal views on education to essentially believe that, oh, I should get 100 just for ranting and saying my personal beliefs. and all that every time I do a course. And it's insane. And there was a CBS piece that I will quote from that said, again, the assignment was for a psychology class about lifespan development, 650 word response to an academic study that examined whether conformity with gender norms associated with popularity of building among middle school students. And again, gender norms male and female, but the article never says no man and female. And then it says, Nekke wrote she was frustrated by the premise of the article because she doesn't believe that there are more than two genders based on her understanding of the Bible. But it's like, okay, but that's not really what the piece is even saying. And then another piece, I think, from the Oklahoma and says, quoting her, I gave my opinion and not just my opinion, but that's like the Bible says that God created male and female.

And anything that's not from God is glorifying to God is glorifying to the enemy. And then she said, it's that I think I should have gotten 100. And granted she said she's gotten 100 on assignments in the past. So maybe there is some discrimination that suddenly that's a problem. But it's like, you're so conceited if you think you should just get 100 for not doing basic requirements. I think that this is why the reason article is extremely good one to cite in this context. And we should definitely get back to that article. But basically what Christian here is arguing is that maybe she did truly face discrimination, but not.

not for the reason she wants to think, not because she wrote a good article about, you know, why God made man and woman, Adam and Eve, and not Adam and Steve. Okay. I mean, that's the level of complexity her argument reaches. Actually, the reason that she was so blindsided by this is because she's been dealing with great inflation and so have all these other students. Yeah. And it's, I just find this paradoxically entertaining. And by the way, you're listening to flyover features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Is that. Like, simultaneously, she's claiming conservatism and stuff, well, without even realizing, it's just how I think a lot of people have been influenced by the very ideas they claim to fight against. Like, a lot of conservatives, I think, think very much in conflict or class-based, which has a lot of its roots in Marxism.

Without even realizing it, she's influenced by the liberalism idea of education, where she expects just this easy work in, you don't even have to directly answer the assignment or whatever, you know, just your own thoughts and feelings. instead of a study that I think was mostly okay, and she just expects that. And then she also, the professor was put on leave in response to the situation, and she got her grade back because she filed a complaint for religious discrimination. And this is a bit inspirited, but I remember I was speaking to Emma when we first heard about this. And, you know, the graders here are the graders, the professors here, a lot of them are quite difficult. And I had Dr. Jackson, his reputation for being very hard. and like, you know, people get almost everyone a C-minus D, and he's a member of his church.

Like, he's not a priest, but, like, holds some ecclesiastical. An elder or more, like, broadly, yes, thank you. You know, he's very Christian, and I was just thinking, you know, I wonder if Samantha Fulnecke went here. And I'm not saying this to be mean, I'm just saying it because, you know, they grate hardly. Would she claim religious discrimination if a conservative. If a conservative Christian professor gave her a bad grade for bad writing, that's what's weird to me. Like, I would get an F if I wrote, she wrote for either my current theology professor or like Dr. Jackson or like any other professor here. And they're probably more, some of them are more right-wing or conservative even probably than she is.

I like what Christian says here. While granting that a minor dispute about the justice of a failing grade did not need to become a national media controversy, the fight over Fulnicki's paper does reveal a lot about the sad state of higher education. On a high level, Fulniki has caused to think that she's been unfairly treated, although largely for reasons that she should not find particularly flattering. While her essay was badly written, it seems to have met the minimal requirements

of the busy work assignment she was given. I think that that's just so true. I bet, I mean, just based on what I've seen, I see people who went to, you know, less prestigious schools, not even to say that Hillsdale is prestigious, but like a little less rigorous. And I've seen the style of these people's writing and it's not great. And that's not to say my writing is just perfect all the time. But, I mean, when she looks around herself, I'm sure that all of her classmates write just as poorly as she does.

Because we've really lowered the bar for higher education. unfortunate because she's a psychology student. You should have a, like, actual baseline understanding of analytic thinking. And a third-year pre-med student. Yeah, that's crazy. Pre-med. Pre-med students are writing like this. So whenever you go to the doctor and you just, like, they can't figure out what's wrong

with you, this is probably largely one of the reasons why. Well, she's also gotten attention, of course, from all the, from, like, a, you know, representative state rep who's like, oh, she's discriminated against Willa Ward. or stuff like that and then apparently of course her mom wanted to like support her for um getting a zero and again it's just like you guys are conceited acting like my understanding of a conceited liberal as a conservative because it's like i have to find it but she said she's confident god's using her for a purpose i think this is something you wanted her to stand for she said the comments really don't bother us God's protecting us and

this is from Yehune News her mother says she didn't tell her daughter what to do after she received a zero on her essay but she did help her decide who to take her concerns to and she was looking for help of appealing her grade but it's like so you're okay with just you just assume discrimination when you wrote something that's not

like high quality again it's just so conceited I can't get over it it's really unfortunate and I know that like there are cases where that stuff happens but it's bad like my dad definitely had when you went to Arizona state cases where professors would give you a bad grade if they didn't conform to your view or wouldn't quite give you an A. But I don't know, that makes it more worse than is that knowing sometimes that stuff happens. And then if someone

gets a deservedly bad grade and then it makes us, you know, more right-leading or conservative people look bad. Like she's getting a decent amount of support and even Fox News, like this is making national news and everything is talking about her, as is Libs of TikTok, the well-known Twitter account that post about problems in education. But like she's getting ratted on by a lot of leftling or liberal people deservedly so because they're like, oh, conservatives are stupid. And look at their claiming discrimination when she got deservedly to be a bad grade on the assignment. So it's really making it worse for like actual cases of viewpoint discrimination. That's what bothers me about it. Yeah, I normally don't like to very strongly attack people for doing something I

disagree with, or even if something is poorly written, I won't necessarily say that outright for no reason, because who am I to criticize somebody else? But I think that this young lady has contacted the media and really tried to put herself under the national spotlight. And this is the attention she wants. She wants attention from people. She expects critical attention. maybe she didn't expect it so much from the right well i mean she's getting it now yeah i'd feel better if there wasn't like she's trying to get so much media attention and is getting a lot of deserved you know attention and whatnot for this and is i think being just unfair about it and i don't know it's it's bizarre too because it's like you know talking about how the elite college students who

can't read books or things like that or even do any work and great and inflation. And this is a clear example of that, of being able to get that far without being able to fulfill basic expectations for an essay. And even, she didn't even try to understand a psychology paper or the argument. And it's like, well, how can you better argue or better defend your beliefs if you aren't reading these sources that are trying to think about it in a more academic way? I don't know. I mean, I see those things differently. I study sociology, which a lot of people think of as even more liberal. And sometimes I'll read things that the people have a very different view than I do, but I want to really understand and engage with their argument so that I

can better, you know, strengthen my faith and the like. And I don't know. It's like, I don't want to just get down to this rantiness level. It's kind of wild. That's all you have time for today. You're listening to Fly for Features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Thank you.