Even a cursory perusal of the national news media will suggest that among the significant problems afflicting American education from the elementary to the postgraduate level is a stunning lack of academic freedom. Indeed, anyone who has attended an American university in the last 30 years has been made aware to varying degrees that if you express certain “conservative” or “traditional” views on moral and political issues, you may well face varying degrees of discrimination or prejudice.
As I have interacted with students on campuses across the country over the past few decades, I have the clear impression that the “groupthink” on many college campuses (starting with a nearly monolithic faculty group liberal worldview) has reached stifling levels. Many, many times, I have had students tell me that they are fearful that if they say what they really think about various political, religious, or philosophical subjects in class or in term papers, they will be penalized by prejudiced liberal professors.
Even way back when I was an undergraduate (1965-1969), the overwhelming majority of my liberal arts professors at Princeton were liberal. I will always remember attending my first lecture in a history class. The professor, a man with a worldwide reputation, began by going through the syllabus, summarizing each of the assigned 16 required textbooks, giving each one’s historical worldview. He then volunteered that he was a Marxist-Leninist (he said he used to be a Communist, but he left the party as a protest to the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956) and he would be lecturing from that perspective.
By the way, it was a great course, and it had a good deal to do with my deciding to major in history. I never felt that this professor consciously discriminated against me or other conservative students. Sadly, other professors did. A survey showed that in the 1972 presidential election, the Princeton liberal arts faculty voted 80 percent for McGovern (among the engineering faculty, it was 50-50).
Unfortunately, American college campuses have become much less tolerant in the intervening years. The appalling disturbances and violence in defense of the PLO in response to the heinous, barbaric attacks on Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, have revealed an intolerance and willingness to resort to violence in order to enforce conformity to certain viewpoints on many college campuses.
A recent example of the pervasive nature of discrimination and prejudice against certain traditional moral and political viewpoints has surfaced in what would appear to be an unlikely place—the University of Oklahoma. Oklahoma is a conservative state with a conservative voting record. It also happens to be the most “Baptist” state in the country, with almost a third of the population claiming membership in some form of Baptist church (Southern, Independent, Missionary, National, etc.).
And yet, the news has been occupied recently with the story of a young student at OU, named Samantha Fulnecky. Ms. Fulnecky, a junior psychology major, was required in a psychology class to write a 650-word essay responding to an article discussing the role societal gender norms play in how people are perceived.
Ms. Fulnecky, in fulfilling her assignment, stated that moving away from traditional gender norms “pulls us farther from God’s original plans for humans” and that “God’s plan created innate differences between men and women.”
She went on to opine:
“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 the strength, and He created women in the image of His beauty.”
Fulnecky also criticized her peers for accepting more liberal views on gender just to avoid criticism.
The graduate student instructor responded by giving Fulnecky a 0 out of 25 points on the assignment. Fulnecky complained through her Turning Point USA chapter, which then posted the story on X, which generated 35 million views in 7 days.
The graduate student’s explanation for the zero grade stated that he was “not deducting points because you have certain beliefs.” Instead, he stated that she “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.”
Personally, where I think the instructor crossed the line was when he went on to say that the student’s personal beliefs “do not change the broad medical, psychological and scientific consensus about sex and gender.” That language smacks of condescension and a certain smugness in bias toward the “scientific” consensus.
Also, I suspect if Ms. Fulnecky had been given 20 out of 25 instead of 0, this episode would not have garnered nearly as much attention as it has.
The OU administration has placed the instructor on leave, has replaced him with a full-time professor for the rest of the course, and will be investigating the class. They also assured everyone that “no academic harm” would accrue to the student and that the university “takes seriously concerns involving First Amendment rights, certainly including religious freedoms.”
This situation should be resolved around the concept of what is legally called a “limited open forum.” When a student is given the kind of assignment Ms. Fulnecky was given, the university has opened “a limited open forum” where the student has freedom to bring their personal beliefs to bear on the subject without being subject to penalty.
Given the volatile environment prevalent on the current college campus, students should be free to complain when they feel they have been discriminated against. As Thomas Jefferson reminded us many, many years ago, “eternal vigilance” is the price of assuring liberty.
I applaud Ms. Fulnecky’s courage in being willing to speak up and petition for her First Amendment rights. May we all draw inspiration from her courage and continue to both practice and protect our free speech rights as Americans.
Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.
Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.
