University of Oklahoma fires professor for discriminating against student who quoted the Bible

The University of Oklahoma reported that a professor was fired after a student reported she was discriminated against after she failed on a paper in which she discussed her Christian faith.

"As stated previously, the student followed two available processes at the University: the grade appeals process in the college and she made a formal claim of illegal religious discrimination," the university wrote in a statement.

At issue is Samantha Fulnecky, a junior at the university. She received zero out of 25 on the score of an assignment in which she referenced the Bible after graduate teaching assistant William "Mel" Curth, who uses the pronouns she/they, graded the paper.

The professor asked students to write a response to an academic paper titled "Relationships Between Gender Typicality, Peer Relationships, and Mental Health During Early Adolescence," which discusses the results of a study on gender norms among high school students and the social ramifications children may face for not conforming to gender norms.

The student, according to Fox News, responded by asserting that gender roles should be valued and respected, not looked down upon. To back up her position, she cited Genesis, the first book of the Bible, which states that God created men and women with equal dignity, but with different roles.

"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," she wrote in his essay.

In addition, it was learned that she also described the social impulse toward non-binary gender identification as "demonic."

In the justification for the zero grade, the professor argued that the young woman did not answer the questions and that she had "excessive personal ideology" in the response. The professor also defended that, in their view, the idea of only two sexes is not supported by science and called the student's answer "highly offensive."

"You may personally disagree with this, but that doesn't change the fact that every major psychological, medical, pediatric, and psychiatric association in the United States acknowledges that, biologically and psychologically, sex and gender is neither binary nor fixed," Curth said.

"I definitely think that I was being punished for what I believe because I very clearly stated in my essay in my response to the article, I very clearly stated my beliefs and stated what — not just my beliefs — but what the Bible and what God says about gender and about those roles," Fulnecky told Fox News Digital.