Samantha Fulnecky Story Exposes Conservatives' Anti-DEI Lie
White Conservatives Want Reverse-DEI For University Of Oklahoma Student Samantha Fulnecky. Let’s Talk About It
Student protests at the University of Oklahoma are still in full swing after the college placed a psychology instructor on administrative leave after they were accused by junior Samantha Fulnecky of religious discrimination, when all that really happened was a student got a failing grade for a paper that absolutely deserved a failing grade.
Mostly, the internet has not been on Fulnecky’s side, with people rightfully pointing out that she didn’t complete the assignment — in which she was given a scholarly article about “gender typicality, peer relations, and mental health,” and directed to write a “thoughtful discussion of some aspect of the article” — because she didn’t follow the rubric, make the word count, cite any sources, including specific biblical text, or even discuss the subject she was assigned to discuss. Instead, Fulnecky opted to write about how her God tells her trans people — who were, again, not the subject of the original article — are “demonic.” What’s worse, Fulnecky’s writing style likely wouldn’t have passed muster in a middle school English class.
Still, white conservatives, including Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, other conservative politicians from Oklahoma, right-wing pundits and podcasters, and, of course, the fine folks at Turning Point USA, have gone to bat for Fulnecky, claiming the trans graduate instructor gave her a failing grade because she’s an outspoken Christian who stood up for her beliefs, despite the fact that her thoughts on trans people had literally nothing to do with the assignment, and that a multitude of seasoned professors in and outside of OU read her remedial ramblings and agreed she got the zero grade she deserved.
This brings me to my next point, one that I fear is being overlooked even amid the protests:
White conservatives who wrongly claim diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives lower the standards for hiring and recruiting are now demanding that the standards of the assignment be lowered so this Christian white woman can receive her passing grade.
Look, anyone who knows anything about DEI that isn’t 100% informed by their own racial resentment knows diversity initiatives are about leveling the playing field, and anyone claiming it lowers the standards is falsely assuming the standard was ever the same for everyone in the first place. But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that white conservatives are right and DEI and affirmative action cause institutions to have to lower the bar in order to fill racial or gender quotas. Even if they were correct — which they are not — they still aren’t applying that same non-logic to themselves.
In 2023, Gov. Stitt signed an executive order banning DEI measures in the state, signed into law a white fragility bill prohibiting teachings in K-12 schools that include Critical Race Theory — a college-level academic framework that is not taught in K-12 schools — as well as any other race-based curriculum that causes “discomfort, guilt, anguish or psychological distress” to (white) students. (Oklahoma wants to be Florida so bad.) Yet, after being contacted by Funecky and her Jan. 6 defendant lawyer mother, Kristi Fulnecky, about the so-called religious discrimination the 21-year-old faces, he blindly responded by tweeting: “The 1st Amendment is foundational to our freedom & inseparable from a well-rounded education. The situation at OU is deeply concerning. I’m calling on the OU regents to review the results of the investigation & ensure other students aren’t unfairly penalized for their beliefs.”
Then there’s Turning Point USA, the organization founded by slain white Christian nationalist Charlie Kirk, who claimed to be afraid of Black pilots because he assumed they were DEI hires, and dedicated his platform to being a mediocre college dropout who blasted some of the most accomplished Black women in America as DEI hires who lacked “the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously,” prompting them to “go steal a white person’s slot.” Turning Point USA once held what it called an “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” in which it charged white customers $1 for baked goods, Hispanic customers 50 cents for the same goods, and Black customers 20 cents — all to make some white, fragile, and ahistorical point about affirmative action being discriminatory to Caucasians. More recently, the organization has planned to invade HBCUs on a campaign to school Black students on the oppressive nature of DEI.
Yet, when it comes to failing Fulnecky, Turning Point is giving her and her glaring mediocrity its full support.
It’s bad enough that Fulnecky’s supporters are claiming anti-Christian persecution in a country where 60 to 65% of the adult population identifies as some denomination of Christian, and Christianity is so overrepresented in our government that we’re still debating same sex marriage and fighting an effort to put the Bible in classrooms, all because Christian dogma still has a stranglehold on American politics. But now these same people have seemingly abandoned their entire “meritocracy” narrative. Of course, that shouldn’t be surprising since these same people make up MAGA America, who are responsible for President Donald Trump’s administration of woefully underqualified Caucasian reverse DEI hires, all because they couldn’t stomach the possibility of a qualified Black woman like Kamala Harris becoming president.
Actually, I’ve written about this before:
But white people don’t give a sh*t about merit. They elected Trump in 2020 despite the fact that he had zero experience holding political office, and then they voted him in again after claiming ad nauseam that Harris was woefully underqualified for the presidency despite her eight years as San Francisco’s 27th district attorney, eight years as California’s 32nd attorney general, four years as a U.S. senator and four years as vice president of the United States.
Trump doesn’t give a sh*t about merit. For the position of secretary of state, he nominated Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host with zero national defense experience to replace Lloyd Austin — the Black four-star general who served as our 28th national defense secretary after serving as the 12th commander of U.S. Central Command and the 33rd vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army.
During his confirmation hearing, Hegseth was tested on his knowledge of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and his answer to the line of questioning was something to the effect of: “Shiiiiiet, I know we got homies in Japan and one of them damn Koreas, right?” (I’m paraphrasing, but that’s pretty much what he said.) Hegseth named four countries, none of which are part of ASEAN, but he did so as a born-with-merit white man, so no one is going to call him a “DEI hire.”
Truth be told, Fulnecky’s paper was likely a publicity stunt aimed at attacking a trans educator and clout chasing for an elevated MAGA platform, but that wouldn’t change the fact that her campaign is exposing white conservatives for what they are: a bunch of racist hypocrites who are only pretending merit is at the heart of the issue of DEI.
It has always been a lie they lean on to play around in our faces; now, they’re just showing us that every allegation they spew is actually a confession.
They want DEI for mediocre white people to get ahead. That’s it, and that’s all.
SEE ALSO:
University Of Oklahoma Student Protests Failing Grade On Gender Essay
Oklahoma Requires Teachers From Democratic-Led States To Prove They Back ‘America 1st’
White Conservatives Want Reverse-DEI For University Of Oklahoma Student Samantha Fulnecky. Let’s Talk About It was originally published on newsone.com
