Oklahoma University removes trans TA from teaching duties, siding with far-right student whose mom is a lawyer for J6 rioters

An official statement from the University of Oklahoma details the university’s actions following the claims of “religious discrimination” by a student.

By Artemis T. Douglas & Jane Migliara Brigham

Today, the University of Oklahoma released an official statement announcing the university’s “resolution” to the claims of “religious discrimination” raised against a trans teaching assistant.

The statement was released via Elon Musk’s X- formerly Twitter. 

The teaching assistant was removed from her teaching position, and the zero that the student got on her unsourced paper was removed from her grades of the class.

The student who filed the claims (Samantha Fulnecky) cited no sources in the essay at issue, engaged with Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA (TPUSA) to launder the story into a national scandal, has a mother who defended J6 rioters as a lawyer, and that mother (Kristi Fulnecky) posted online during the initial news wave that all trans people should be “automatically disqualified from holding any position as a teacher or professor”.  

The surrounding discussion on this incident from the right focused almost exclusively on the fact that the fired teacher was a transsexual woman. 

Their desire to see her removed from her job was not incidental to their support for Fulnecky, it was their primary motivation– The two desires were one and the same.

Fascist actors from Chloe Cole to Samantha Fulnecky’s mother to the Fox News network were all aligned with making this out to be the next battle in their culture war. 

The dismissal of the teacher is a clear cut case of discrimination against a transsexual. Her decision to give Fulnecky a zero for her essay was backed up by another (cissexual) teaching assistant, but only the trans woman was punished in any way.

This double standard appears to be what the people pushing for it were hoping for. Since they have said openly that trans people should not be in teaching positions, the justification for the teacher’s firing is immaterial to them. This is another victory in what the fascists call the campaign to “eradicate transgenderism from public life”.

The University of Oklahoma itself doesn’t appear to be a victim in this campaign, only the teacher in question.

When announcing both the original suspension of the transsexual TA and the final resolution, OU didn’t release to the press via their normal press and media relations processes. 

In both cases, they announced their decisions exclusively as an image-based post on X- formerly Twitter.

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In both announcements, their official statement image did not have alt-text, which is a violation of accessibility good standards, as well as standing disability and accessibility law in the United States. 

Even releasing a PDF, if properly formatted, would have fulfilled that requirement.

In other words, the University was content to release their anti-trans actions in an environment dominated by the right-wing actors their administrative decisions catered to, but couldn’t find the time to follow the law regarding making such releases accessible to low-vision and blind users.