What's happening in Norman is an outrage. [View all]

Last edited Sat Dec 6, 2025, 06:08 PM - Edit history (2)

First, some disclosure - I have connections to the University of Oklahoma. My maternal grandparents were both OU alums, and I still have relatives living in the OKC and Norman areas. My mother, in spite of having gone to the University of Kansas, was a lifelong Sooner fan. It caused a conflict when I went to the University of Texas for graduate school.

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Some of you have no doubt followed this story. An OU student was asked to critique an article in her psychology class that discussed the interplay between transgender youth and peer pressure. She and her classmates were given very specific instructions to follow when writing their critique.

She followed none of them. Instead, her response was a straight-up sermon on why her interpretation of the Bible sets fixed genders we're required to follow.

She got a 0 on the paper. And the instructor went way above and beyond by providing a lengthy explanation for why the paper earned no points. The instructor made it clear that the student's opinions, in and of themselves, were irrelevant. The problem was the student's disregard for the instructions she was provided. This instructor also asked another instructor to evaluate the paper, and the second instructor concurred.

Did the student sit down with the instructor to discuss the result? Nope. She screamed from the highest heights about being persecuted. She even wrote to the governor of Oklahoma. State legislators have spoken up, and most of them have come across as seriously uninformed about the issue. Worse, OU appears to be backing down, even putting the instructor on leave.

Here's the thing - the student wasn't dinged because of her opinions. She was dinged because she didn't follow the instructions. Don't believe me? Both the article assigned to the class and the student's paper can be viewed online, as can the instructor's response to the student explaining the score. Any objective reader can see that the student simply didn't follow instructions - none of which, by the way, required a student to agree with anything in the article.

I've been approached by students who've expressed discomfort at some of the subjects I teach, either for political or religious reasons. Here's what I tell them - I can't require any student to actually believe or agree with anything I say. I can only require that they understand it. Hence, if I ask a question about evolution or climate change and the student simply puts down "I don't believe in this stuff, it's an atheistic or communist lie," I'd mark it wrong. But if the student says "I don't believe in this stuff, it's an atheistic or communist lie, but the answer you're looking for is the following...." and then proceeds to provide the correct answer, that's full credit. I hold students accountable for how well they grasp what I'm teaching, not for their personal beliefs about it.

I understand the pressure universities are under - especially in red states. I teach at a public university in a red state. Still, I would have hoped that in this case, the president of OU, Joseph Harroz, could have been a voice of clarity and honesty. He could have defended the professionalism of the instructor, who went way beyond what most instructors would have done to cover her bases and make the reasons for the zero-credit assessment fully clear and transparent. He could have explained that OU is a public university open to students of all faiths, and that free expression of that faith is the right of every student, but that students are still expected to be, you know, students. That means following instructions on assignments if they want to succeed. It doesn't mean holding back on their views - had I been the instructor, I'd have been totally cool if this student had added a paragraph explaining why they firmly believe sexes to be strictly binary and fixed - but it does mean facing views that differ from yours and addressing them not as abominations to be dismissed without reason, but as concepts that should be handled with deliberation and thought.

And it goes without saying that OU should reinstate this instructor and provide a huge apology to her.

Those who are claiming a student who didn't follow instructions is being persecuted only for her beliefs are doing her no favors whatsoever.