Pattern of anti-Christian bias? OU hit with new complaint – Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs

Projects +
Higher Education
Ray Carter | November 25, 2025
Pattern of anti-Christian bias? OU hit with new complaint
Ray Carter
University of Oklahoma junior Samantha Fulnecky has become the latest in a string of students and university employees who have alleged anti-Christian discrimination at OU.
According to The Oklahoman, Fulnecky was given a zero for an essay that cited the Bible as a basis for her views on gender.
The instructor, an unnamed graduate assistant, called the essay offensive and said Fulnecky should have cited empirical evidence. 
However, the guidelines for the assignment did not specifically require students to cite empirical evidence.
Instead, students were asked to write a 650-word “reaction paper” that provided a “thoughtful discussion of some aspect of the article.” Among the “possible approaches” suggested was to explain why a student thought the subject of the article was, or was not, worthy of study or to explain how the study applied to a student’s own experiences.
The assigned article claimed that gender-atypical kids experience more teasing, leading to negative mental health outcomes.
In her essay, Fulnecky wrote, “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.”
She continued, “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.”
Fulnecky also stated, “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.”
The Oklahoman included a transcript of the instructor’s comments responding to Fulnecky’s paper. The instructior claimed her paper “contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive.”
The instructor also claimed that “this isn’t a vague narrative of ‘society pushes lies,’ but instead the result of countless years developing psychological and scientific evidence for these claims and directly interacting with the communities involved. 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.”
Fulnecky has filed a formal discrimination complaint with the university, along with a grade appeal.
Fulnecky told The Oklahoman she believes the instructor violated her First Amendment rights, saying she was discriminated against based on her religious beliefs and her exercise of free speech that complied with the guidelines of the assignment and OU’s own non-discrimination policy.
When The Oklahoman requested comment on Fulnecky’s situation, the paper reported that a spokesperson simply responded that the university has a formal grade appeal process in place.
This is not the first such incident at OU in recent years.
Christian Views Unacceptable at OU Law 
In 2019, the University of Oklahoma reached a settlement agreement with a law school professor who was forced to resign two administrative positions for espousing traditional Catholic beliefs as a private citizen.
In 2014, OU law professor Brian McCall wrote To Build the City of God: Living as Catholics in a Secular Age. The book included a discussion of traditionalist Catholic beliefs about gender roles, same-sex marriage, education, politics, and economics.
Years later, the OU student newspaper wrote two articles about the book, claiming it was “sexist and homophobic.”
Following the articles, McCall was forced to relinquish two administrative posts he held in the College of Law—associate dean of the University of Oklahoma College of Law and associate director of the Law Center.
“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.” —OU student Samantha Fulnecky
The resignations occurred even though an OU spokesperson said McCall had “an impeccable record as an administrator and is consistently ranked as one of the top professors in the College of Law.” And when the OU Equal Opportunity Office launched an investigation of McCall, it found no wrongdoing or evidence that he had treated anyone inappropriately.
In 2018, then-OU law dean Joseph Harroz, who is now president of OU, announced in a message to students and staff that an investigation had found no wrongdoing by McCall—but that McCall was nonetheless resigning. “At all levels of the college, we promote the importance of diversity, multiculturalism, inclusion, and equality for all students, faculty, and staff,” Harroz wrote. 
While OU officials portrayed the resignation as voluntary, McCall filed discrimination claims that led to the legal settlement.
An official with the American Catholic Lawyers Association, which represented McCall, said that due to confidentiality requirements surrounding the settlement, he could not comment or make public any details about the settlement. However, he did note that McCall was “in a good place” as a result of the settlement.
OU Regents Call Christian Student’s Complaint an ‘Inimical Rant’
In 2021, former University of Oklahoma women’s volleyball player Kylee McLaughlin sued the university, saying she was forced to watch a left-wing political documentary as part of volleyball practice activities and was then punished by coaches for expressing disagreement with the documentary’s viewpoint, which compared President Donald Trump and his supporters to violent segregationists in the 1960s.
McLaughlin’s lawsuit against OU and volleyball coaches Lindsey Gray Walton and Kyle Walton said that during the spring 2020 COVID-19 shutdown, “the schedule for the O.U. women’s volleyball team changed dramatically” as coaches “for several months, emphasized discussions about white privilege and social justice rather than coaching volleyball.”
By June 15, 2020, just four days after the mandatory team discussion of the documentary, McLaughlin’s lawsuit said coaches and teammates attacked her as “a racist and a homophobe” and Coach Walton declared he was “not sure I can coach you anymore.”
By Oct. 6, 2020, the lawsuit said that McLaughlin received an email from the University of Oklahoma’s “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” office that required her to “be in an individual ‘Growth Plan’” that “involved a series of online training” about homosexuality and “unlearning” classism, ableism, trans and homosexual negativities, and sexism.
The lawsuit said McLaughlin was “forced to take courses on diversity and identities, communication, intra-culture communications, active listening, and identity of privilege and race.” The lawsuit said those trainings consumed more than 10 hours and included pop quizzes.
The lawsuit noted that no other member of the team was required to undergo an individual growth plan.
As a sophomore, McLaughlin was first team all-Big 12, Co-Setter of the year, selected as national player of the week, selected for the all-academic Big 12 team, and selected as OU Student-Athlete of the year. In her junior year, McLaughlin again earned all-Big 12 first team honors and was again selected for the Big 12’s all-academic team. McLaughlin was also selected as a captain of the women’s varsity volleyball team for the first two years she was in the program.
She ultimately transferred to another school and then sued OU.
McLaughlin’s lawsuit noted that OU’s non-discrimination policy states that discrimination is not allowed for any individual’s political beliefs or religion. The lawsuit stated that “it was known to her teammates” that McLaughlin was “a practicing Christian and conservative in her political beliefs.”
“At all levels of the college, we promote the importance of diversity, multiculturalism, inclusion, and equality for all students, faculty, and staff.” —Then-OU law dean Joseph Harroz
In their motion to dismiss McLaughlin’s lawsuit, coaches Walton and Walton said they are allowed to discipline players for political opinions because political disagreements can disrupt team unity.
In their motion to dismiss, the coaches did not deny that they forced players to engage in political discussions that led to the alleged disruption of “team unity.”
“While Plaintiff was free to make bigoted statements, she was not free from the consequences of how her teammates perceived those statements,” the Waltons’ motion stated. “The First Amendment cannot force her teammates to trust Plaintiff or desire to play with her. Consequently, the Complaint makes clear that Coach Walton was within her rights to cultivate a winning ‘team atmosphere by ensuring the players that ‘trust’ each other would be on the court.”
The filing did not list any specific “bigoted statements” made by McLaughlin and did not deny key claims in McLaughlin’s lawsuit.
In their motion to dismiss, the Waltons continued to portray McLaughlin as a racial bigot despite not citing any specific examples, saying the coaches “did not place Plaintiff in false light” and that McLaughlin’s lawsuit “fails to state anywhere Defendants were aware that Plaintiff was, in fact, not racist or homophobic.”
A separate motion to dismiss McLaughlin’s lawsuit, filed by the Board of Regents for the University of Oklahoma, called McLaughlin’s lawsuit an “inimical rant.”
The Regents’ motion said that if McLaughlin has been labelled a racist, it was her own fault for publicly complaining about the treatment she received at OU.
“Plaintiff states that she has been branded a racist and a homophobe by the Defendants,” the Regents’ motion states. “It was only after the Complaint was filed that Plaintiff received the attention complained about: in other words, Plaintiff caused her own harm.”
In 2021, OU President Harroz declared his opposition to state legislation that prohibited colleges from requiring students to take any orientation “that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or a bias on the basis of race or sex,” declaring the legislation to be “contrary to the goals we have laid out for ourselves as part of our Strategic Plan.”
Following initial publication of this story, OU issued a statement, declaring, “At OU, we value and uphold freedom of expression, including freedom of religion, and it is our ongoing pursuit to teach students how to think, not what to think. While federal law prohibits us from talking about individual students and their grades, the University takes all academic grading matters seriously and utilizes a formal appeals process comprised of both faculty and student representation, with students supported throughout this process. We’re confident that our processes address both the concerns of impacted students and academic integrity. Further, any student who feels they are the victim of unlawful discrimination may also pursue such matters through the University’s independent office that investigates such concerns.”
[For more stories about higher education in Oklahoma, visit AimHigherOK.com.]
Director, Center for Independent Journalism
Ray Carter is the director of OCPA’s Center for Independent Journalism. He has two decades of experience in journalism and communications. He previously served as senior Capitol reporter for The Journal Record, media director for the Oklahoma House of Representatives, and chief editorial writer at The Oklahoman. As a reporter for The Journal Record, Carter received 12 Carl Rogan Awards in four years—including awards for investigative reporting, general news reporting, feature writing, spot news reporting, business reporting, and sports reporting. While at The Oklahoman, he was the recipient of several awards, including first place in the editorial writing category of the Associated Press/Oklahoma News Executives Carl Rogan Memorial News Excellence Competition for an editorial on the history of racism in the Oklahoma legislature.
Ray Carter is the director of OCPA’s Center for Independent Journalism. He has two decades of experience in journalism and communications. He previously served as senior Capitol reporter for The Journal Record, media director for the Oklahoma House of Representatives, and chief editorial writer at The Oklahoman. As a reporter for The Journal Record, Carter received 12 Carl Rogan Awards in four years—including awards for investigative reporting, general news reporting, feature writing, spot news reporting, business reporting, and sports reporting. While at The Oklahoman, he was the recipient of several awards, including first place in the editorial writing category of the Associated Press/Oklahoma News Executives Carl Rogan Memorial News Excellence Competition for an editorial on the history of racism in the Oklahoma legislature.
Phone: 405.602.1667
digital@ocpathink.org
© 2025 Oklahoma Council Of Public Affairs
All Rights Reserved

source