OzeEssay: The Assignment That Broke the Unspoken Rules University of Oklahoma, December 2025 – A Post-Mortem The Unwritten Contract of a “Reaction Paper” [OzeEssay](https://www.ozessay.com.au/) Everyone who has taken a 2000-level psych class knows the deal: when the syllabus says “personal reaction, no outside sources required,” it usually means “tell me what you felt, back it up loosely with the reading, and don’t be a jerk.” Samantha Fulnecky followed the first two parts and shattered the third. The Four Sentences That Crossed the Line Out of 682 words, these are the ones that made the zero inevitable: “Transgenderism and non-binary identities are demonic strongholds disguised as compassion.” “The enemy wants children confused about their God-given sex.” “True healing comes from repentance, not affirmation.” “We must love people enough to tell them the hard truth instead of celebrating their rebellion.” In any other context (church, private journal, Instagram), those sentences are legally protected speech. In a graded assignment read by a transgender teaching assistant, they were experienced as a direct personal attack. The Grading Decision in Plain English Mel Curth did not fail the paper for being Christian. They failed it for doing three things no instructor can ignore in 2025: Using the phrase “demonic” to describe the existence of a protected campus minority (the exact word that got students expelled for hate speech at other schools). Turning a reaction paper into evangelism aimed at an audience that included the grader’s own identity. Spending 70 % of the word count on theology and less than 20 % on the actual study. A paper that called Catholicism “satanic” or atheism “demonic” would have received the same zero from almost any TA, regardless of their personal beliefs. What the University Still Hasn’t Said (But Everyone Knows) The professor of record, not the TA, has final authority over grades. The prof has been silent for 27 days. OU’s legal counsel is terrified of two lawsuits: one from ADF for religious discrimination, one from Curth (or the ACLU on their behalf) for failing to protect an LGBTQ employee from targeted harassment. The safest financial move is to give Samantha a quiet 70 %, pay Curth a six-figure settlement, and pretend the whole thing never happened. The New Normal, Starting Spring 2026 Across Oklahoma’s public universities (and quietly in at least twelve other states), instructors have already done the math: Open-ended “What do you think?” prompts → gone All future reflection assignments will be multiple-choice, recorded video responses, or strictly evidence-based Every syllabus now contains the sentence: “Personal religious or political beliefs may be mentioned but cannot serve as the primary justification for claims in this course.” Final Scorecard (as of December 11, 2025) Samantha Fulnecky: national conservative heroine, book deal rumored, GPA temporarily tanked Mel Curth: on indefinite paid leave, address hidden, career on hold University of Oklahoma: $400 k+ in unplanned security and legal costs, reputation damaged on both left and right Open intellectual discourse in intro psych classes: quietly dead