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Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this

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Speaker 1: is There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a

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Speaker 1: former educator, we have got to talk about what's happening at.

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Speaker 2: The University of Oklahoma right now. So in this episode,

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Speaker 2: we'll start with why I think we're uniquely qualified to

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Speaker 2: weigh in.

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Speaker 1: You'll hear the full Bible based paper whose failing grade

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Speaker 1: was heard around the country and our thoughts on it,

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Speaker 1: kind of treating it as a good faith assignment, but

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Speaker 1: also why I think the entire thing is one big scam.

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Speaker 1: So let's get into it. Mike, you and I both

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Speaker 1: have backgrounds as educators.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 3: When I was in grad school for all of eight years,

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Speaker 3: I funded myself for much of that time through teaching

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Speaker 3: assistant ships. So I got to teach a couple of

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Speaker 3: courses in say collegy at a big university in the Midwest,

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Speaker 3: so in some respects similar to Oklahoma, but in others

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Speaker 3: pretty different.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I also taed my way through graduate school, but

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Speaker 1: then I started adjuncting.

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Speaker 2: Did you ever do any adjuncting?

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Speaker 3: I never did any adjuncting, but Honestly, I have been

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Speaker 3: thinking about it lately. I kind of like miss teaching,

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Speaker 3: and so this story when you brought it up, kind

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Speaker 3: of spoke to me. I guess I was like hungry

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Speaker 3: to think about teaching.

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Speaker 1: Same by not adjuncting, you missed out on making like

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Speaker 1: a whopping two thousand dollars a year.

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Speaker 3: It was not well paid work, that is my sense

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Speaker 3: of it. Yeah, I guess talk to me again after

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Speaker 3: I do it. But you know, I wouldn't necessarily be

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Speaker 3: doing it for the money, but just to I don't know,

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Speaker 3: there's something exciting and fun about talking with students, and

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Speaker 3: often they show up with so much enthusiasm and genuine

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Speaker 3: interest in learning. So maybe I'm just really romanticizing something

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Speaker 3: that I haven't actually done in well over ten years.

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Speaker 1: No, no, no, I completely agree. I absolutely loved my

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Speaker 1: time in the classroom. I had a personalized license plate

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Speaker 1: that said love to teach or live to teach, depending

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Speaker 1: on how you read it. And yeah, I was that

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Speaker 1: person who there was an energy and an excitement from

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Speaker 1: being around young learners that I have not felt replicated

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Speaker 1: any place else in my career. So yeah, I started

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Speaker 1: out tiang and grad school. I adjuncted. I taught writing

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Speaker 1: courses all over DC, Maryland, Virginia, including two different religious universities,

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Speaker 1: a Catholic university at a seven Day Adventist university, so

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Speaker 1: I have greated a few papers that reference the Bible

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Speaker 1: in my day. I got my job as a full

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Speaker 1: time instructor at Howard University here in DC, go Ahu,

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Speaker 1: where I taught for many years. I was also on

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Speaker 1: what they call them the Enrichment Committee, which was sort

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Speaker 1: of a cohort of instructors that basically had to stay

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Speaker 1: abreast of the newest teaching methods to train other teachers

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Speaker 1: to make sure that they were, you know, doing it

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Speaker 1: the best way they could. So we both have spent

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Speaker 1: you know, done our hours in front of the classroom.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I actually got some teaching experience as an undergraduate. Me

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Speaker 3: and a couple friends started a student club at Northeastern

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Speaker 3: University to teach English as a second language to some

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Speaker 3: of the staff on campus who were like janitorial or

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Speaker 3: cafeteria workers who had recently come to Boston from other

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Speaker 3: countries and didn't speak English. So that was a really

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Speaker 3: fun and also challenging experience. And then when I got

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Speaker 3: to Wisconsin, for grad school, I tead several seminars, a

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Speaker 3: couple of big lectures, a couple smaller seminars, similar to

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Speaker 3: the type of course that we're going to talk about

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Speaker 3: in a little bit here, where it's like not an

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Speaker 3: intro level course, but like a what I would call

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Speaker 3: a two hundred level course, where you have to have

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Speaker 3: taken like one or more super basic intro to psych

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Speaker 3: courses to then be eligible to take something a little

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Speaker 3: bit further into a specific topic, like, for example, psychology

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Speaker 3: over the lifespan and how that changes. And those courses

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Speaker 3: were always really fun to teach because they were focused

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Speaker 3: enough that they are they have a particular topic. They're

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Speaker 3: not trying to cover all of psychology, but they're open

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Speaker 3: ended enough and introductory enough that you get to cover

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Speaker 3: a lot of different things.

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Speaker 1: Well, here's the real question. In your time teaching, did

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Speaker 1: you fail students? I did fail a few. Yeah, not

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Speaker 1: very many. Because University of Wisconsin is a very good school.

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Speaker 1: It's tough to get in. All the students coming in.

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Speaker 1: We're high quality students, very like good. Not all of

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Speaker 1: them were great writers, but even still we had some

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Speaker 1: who would And most of the time, if I think

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Speaker 1: about you know, the few students who still haunt my nightmares.

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Speaker 1: It was just because they didn't show up, they didn't

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Speaker 1: do the work. But there were also grade grubbers who

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Speaker 1: were like right on the borderline. I can still remember

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Speaker 1: this one woman who was just really dissatisfied with the grades.

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Speaker 1: She got on a paper and came to office hours,

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Speaker 1: and I guess thought that like just continuing to stand

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Speaker 1: her ground in my office and refusing to leave was

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Speaker 1: somehow gonna change her grade, but it did not.

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Speaker 3: I not a grade rubbing fit in Yeah. So, yeah,

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Speaker 3: I did have to fail some students, not very often,

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Speaker 3: but occasionally, and I didn't feel good, particularly in those

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Speaker 3: rare cases where see the student really had tried, but

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Speaker 3: perhaps psychology was just not for them. How about you,

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Speaker 3: Did you ever fail students? Were you?

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Speaker 2: You were?

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Speaker 3: Probably like you're so nice, You're probably a real pushover.

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Speaker 2: Huh oh.

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Speaker 1: I may come off as a sweetie pie on this show,

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Speaker 1: but I was is kind of a hard ass in

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Speaker 1: the classroom.

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Speaker 2: That's what my rate my professor said about me, anyway.

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Speaker 1: And I asked about you failing students Because I've not

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Speaker 1: been in the classroom for a while, I don't know

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Speaker 1: that it's acceptable to fail students, even students who deserve

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Speaker 1: a failing grade anymore.

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Speaker 2: I was doing all my teaching pre COVID.

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Speaker 1: My understanding is that things have really changed instruction wise

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Speaker 1: since then. But when I was in the classroom, I

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Speaker 1: really saw failing students who did not deserve a passing

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Speaker 1: grade as a kind of kindness, like a tough love. Right,

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Speaker 1: it is not kind or fair to just pass a

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Speaker 1: student off to another level that they might not be

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Speaker 1: ready for, just in the hopes that like another professor

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Speaker 1: will sort it out, especially for a writing class.

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Speaker 2: I was teaching writing classes.

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Speaker 1: Students need to know how to passibly write if they

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Speaker 1: are going to be adequately prepared to finish college and

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Speaker 1: get a job. Right, we had resources. I was a resource.

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Speaker 1: I had office hours, we had the writing center.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes it through the course of working together, students might

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Speaker 1: realize that they need some kind of that accommodation, so

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Speaker 1: we would work with them if that was the case.

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Speaker 1: But ultimately, somebody who has not demonstrated an ability to

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Speaker 1: write passively should not just get passed along to the

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Speaker 1: next class. They should have to try again. And I'm

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Speaker 1: so sorry, but that is a failing grade with the

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Speaker 1: big caveat that, nobody in my class was ever surprised

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Speaker 1: that they were failing. If you were even a little

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Speaker 1: bit at risk of failing, you were not just finding

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Speaker 1: that out when you got the failing grade, right, You

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Speaker 1: had to sort of almost really work at it. To

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Speaker 1: get a failing grade, you would have had to disregard

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Speaker 1: a lot of come to Jesus conversations. If you were

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Speaker 1: surprised to be receiving an F in my class, you

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Speaker 1: either were not paying attention or just like genuinely did

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Speaker 1: not care, or like never showed up. There's had to

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Speaker 1: be something else going on. Nobody got an F who

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Speaker 1: was like, oh, what do you mean?

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Speaker 2: A myth? Everybody knew what the deal was by the

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Speaker 2: time they got that grade.

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Speaker 3: You bring up a good point that I think a

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Speaker 3: lot of universities, particularly like public universities, do have a

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Speaker 3: lot of resources for students trying to learn to write

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Speaker 3: and otherwise having trouble writing. I was teaang psychology courses,

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Speaker 3: and some of them were more stats focused, but the

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Speaker 3: majority of them were content focused. And even though psychology

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Speaker 3: it's all writing, like writing is the most fundamental skill

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Speaker 3: for so many things, And absolutely I think you were

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Speaker 3: doing those students a kindness by not just passing them

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Speaker 3: just off to go to a higher level that they

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Speaker 3: weren't ready for. Absolutely, people need to know how to write,

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Speaker 3: especially if they're going to go into psychology or one

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Speaker 3: of the social sciences, where like writing is what you

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Speaker 3: do that the product is written works.

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Speaker 1: Yes, So, as two people who have failed our fair

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Speaker 1: share of students over our teaching careers, I feel like

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Speaker 1: we are qualified to weigh in on what's happening in Oklahoma.

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Speaker 1: So here is what's going on. Samantha Fulnecki is a

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Speaker 1: junior at University of Oklahoma. She turned in an assignment

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Speaker 1: for a class called Lifespan Development in the Psychology department.

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Speaker 1: The course catalog described it as a survey of psychological

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Speaker 1: changes across the lifespan, the changes in cognitive, social, emotional,

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Speaker 1: and physiological development from conception to death. We took a

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Speaker 1: look at the course catalog, Mike, from being a psychologist

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Speaker 1: and somebody who was in this space, you said it.

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Speaker 1: I assumed it was a higher level course, but you

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Speaker 1: said it was sort of like a mid range course.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's listened at the two thousand level, which I'm

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Speaker 3: familiar with classes being like like a one hundred level

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Speaker 3: is an introductory course. Two hundred level is open to

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Speaker 3: freshman sophomores who have completed their Introduction to Psychology course

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Speaker 3: so that they can have some basic foundations on which

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Speaker 3: to start learning about different topic areas. And so that's

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Speaker 3: what this seemed to be. One of those courses that

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Speaker 3: there was only one prerequisite listed, which was introducted, their

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Speaker 3: equivalent to Introduction to Psychology. So what I assume is

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Speaker 3: happening here, I'm not certain, but I assume that this

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Speaker 3: was a course open to sophomore's freshmen who had taken

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Speaker 3: intro to Psychology and wanted to take additional psychology courses

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Speaker 3: about topics. So not a high level course, but one

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Speaker 3: that people would take pretty early on in their college career.

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Speaker 3: Is my sense based on looking at the course Catalan.

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Speaker 1: And according to ou Daily, Samantha is a psychology major,

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Speaker 1: So this is while it's not a high level course,

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Speaker 1: it's not an introductory course, and it's a course that

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Speaker 1: is in her field of study in her major.

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Speaker 3: Yes, that's what it seems to be the case. He

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Speaker 3: seems to be wanting to be a psych major Interestingly,

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Speaker 3: at Wisconsin you had to be a sophomore before you

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Speaker 3: could declare to be a psych major, and you also

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Speaker 3: had to pass this like pretty grueling, intensive research seminar

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Speaker 3: that was essentially like a filter course. So I don't

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Speaker 3: know if they have anything similar to that at Oklahoma.

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Speaker 2: Oh you want to be a psych major? How bad

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Speaker 2: do you want it?

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Speaker 1: Like?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, kinda, because there's this phenomenon that like psychology. I mean,

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Speaker 3: I'm a little bit biased, but it's just an inherently

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Speaker 3: interesting domain, right Like people are social, we think about

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Speaker 3: other people, we think about ourselves. So a lot of

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Speaker 3: the questions that psychology addresses are very accessible and familiar

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Speaker 3: to lots of people, and that's why people are interested

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Speaker 3: in psychology. That's why we have so many like pop

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Speaker 3: psychology books and little like BuzzFeed style quizzes about what

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Speaker 3: type of person you are? Just an inherently interesting thing,

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Speaker 3: and so it attracts a lot of students, which is great,

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Speaker 3: you know. I think it's wonderful for people of all

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Speaker 3: persuasions and walks of life to learn more about psychology.

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Speaker 3: But it attracts a lot of people to the major,

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Speaker 3: some of whom are serious about psychology as a discipline

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Speaker 3: and a social science. Others who are not and think

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Speaker 3: that those short, little BuzzFeed quizzes are like the pinnacle

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Speaker 3: of psych when in fact they are not. And the

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Speaker 3: people who are taking it seriously are then going to

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Speaker 3: go on to work through the courses, work their way

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Speaker 3: up towards a degree that then they will use towards

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Speaker 3: some vocation related to psychology. The people who are just

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Speaker 3: approaching it as like interesting fluff that doesn't really require

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Speaker 3: a whole lot of critical thought or taking time to

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Speaker 3: understand the methods or understand the stats that are involved

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Speaker 3: in learning things and having confidence in our conclusions. Those

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Speaker 3: folks should not be getting psychology degrees. They should just

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Speaker 3: continue reading magazines.

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Speaker 2: You gotta weed out the duds I was saying.

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Speaker 3: I mean for their own good. Like you said, you know,

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Speaker 3: you don't want to give somebody a passing grade and

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Speaker 3: send them onward when they don't have the skills to

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Speaker 3: do what's currently in front of them. You don't want

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Speaker 3: to just hand out psych degrees to anybody who wants some.

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Speaker 3: I mean, if that's what you want, there are plenty

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Speaker 3: of places where you can just buy a degree without

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Speaker 3: putting in work online. During Trump's first term, he passed

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Speaker 3: a bunch of rules that made that even easier. But

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Speaker 3: we need to get into that. Like, if you want

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Speaker 3: to buy a psych degree, you can, But if you

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Speaker 3: want to get a psych degree from a respected university

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Speaker 3: where it's going to mean something, you have to put

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Speaker 3: in the work for it. It's not just a matter of

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Speaker 3: like regurgitating the opinions that you showed up with on

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Speaker 3: your first day of freshman year.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So I want to get into that because you

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Speaker 1: make a point that I want to come back to

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Speaker 1: later after we talk about what's going on. But for

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Speaker 1: this lifespan psychology course, Junior Samantha was asked to write

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Speaker 1: a six hundred and fifty word essay reacting to a

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Speaker 1: study that she was assigned to read about how people

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Speaker 1: are perceived based on societal expectations of gender. I did

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Speaker 1: a little digging, and I found the study that she

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Speaker 1: was meant to be responding to. It's called relations among

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Speaker 1: gender typicality, pure relations, and mental health during early Adolescence.

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Speaker 1: The abstract describes the study as examining whether being high

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Speaker 1: in gender typicalities associated with popularity, whether it being low

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Speaker 1: in gender typicality is associated with rejection and teasing, and

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Speaker 1: whether teasing due to low gender typicality mediates the association

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Speaker 1: with negative mental health.

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Speaker 2: They looked at.

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Speaker 1: Middle school children thirty four boys and fifty girls described

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Speaker 1: hypothetical popular and rejected or teased peers, and completed self

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Speaker 1: report measures about their own gender typicality, experiences with gender

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Speaker 1: based teasing, depressive symptoms, anxiety, self esteem, and body image.

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Speaker 2: So it's a pretty like meaty study.

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Speaker 1: And her task was to read the study and respond

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Speaker 1: in what the instructor asked for to be a thoughtful reaction.

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Speaker 3: These kind of things I think were typical in seminars

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Speaker 3: that I was a teaching assistant for where you'd have

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Speaker 3: one or more readings each week and the students were

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Speaker 3: asked to write a little thing responding to what they

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Speaker 3: had read, where the goal was really to force them

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Speaker 3: to demonstrate that they had read it at all, but

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Speaker 3: also to force them to critically think about the substance

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Speaker 3: of what had been done in the study.

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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I will get into this when we

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Speaker 1: when we look at the rubric for how this essay

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Speaker 1: was graded. But the way that in the assignment probably

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Speaker 1: says three different times, three different ways. Do not just summarize.

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Speaker 1: Do not just summarize the fact that, I mean, I've

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Speaker 1: been there. But the fact that this instructor had to

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Speaker 1: essentially beg the students not to just summarize and demonstrate

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Speaker 1: some sort of thoughtful analysis really says a lot to me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's you know, it's it can be hard.

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Speaker 3: I think for some students making the transition from high

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Speaker 3: school to college to put something of their self into analysis.

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Speaker 3: I think a lot of students can do quite well

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Speaker 3: in high school just you know, painting by numbers, doing

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Speaker 3: what they're supposed to do. And I think some students

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Speaker 3: when they get to college struggle with the concept that

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Speaker 3: you're supposed to add some of your own insight analysis

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Speaker 3: perspective here, but do it in a way that is

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Speaker 3: consistent with how we as a field of psychologists critique

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Speaker 3: studies and use studies as evidence to inform conclusions. It

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Speaker 3: can be tricky.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 4: Let's take a quick break at our back.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm going to read the essay that Samantha

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Speaker 1: turned in. It's not very long, I promise this article

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Speaker 1: was very thought provoking and caused me to thoroughly evaluate

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Speaker 1: the idea of gender and the role that plays in

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Speaker 1: our society. The article discussed peers using teasing as a

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Speaker 1: way to enforce gender norms. I should say that is

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Speaker 1: the one sentence that specifically engages with the source text

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Speaker 1: in a reaction article. You got one sentence that describes

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Speaker 1: anything specifically going on in the study that she's been

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Speaker 1: asked to react to. I do not necessarily see this

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Speaker 1: as a problem. God made male and female and made

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Speaker 1: us differently from each other on purpose and for a purpose.

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Speaker 1: God is very intentional with what he makes, and I

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Speaker 1: believe trying to change that would only do more harm.

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Speaker 1: Gender roles and tendencies should not be considered stereotypes. Women

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Speaker 1: naturally want to do womenly things because God created us

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Speaker 1: with those womanly desires in our hearts. The same goes

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Speaker 1: for men. God created men in the image of his

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Speaker 1: courage and strength, and he created women in the image

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Speaker 1: of his beauty. He intentionally created women differently than men,

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Speaker 1: and we should live our lives with that in mind.

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Speaker 1: It is frustrating to me when I read articles like

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Speaker 1: this and discussion posts from my classmates of so many

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Speaker 1: people try to conform to the same mundane opinion, so

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Speaker 1: they do not step on people's toes. I think that

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Speaker 1: as a cowardly and insincere way to live, it is

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Speaker 1: important to use the freedom of speech we have been

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Speaker 1: given in this country, and I personally believe that eliminating

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Speaker 1: gender in our society would be detrimental as it pulls

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Speaker 1: us farther from God's original plan for humans. It is

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Speaker 1: perfectly normal for kids to follow gender stereotypes because that

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Speaker 1: is how God made us. The reason so many girls

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Speaker 1: want to feel womanly and care for others in a

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Speaker 1: motherly way is not because they feel pressured to fit

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Speaker 1: social norms. It is because God created and chows them

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Speaker 1: to reflect his beauty and his compassion in that way.

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Speaker 1: In Genesis, God says that it is not good for

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Speaker 1: man to be alone, so he created a helper for man,

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Speaker 1: which is a woman.

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Speaker 2: Many people assume.

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Speaker 1: The word helper in this context to be condescending and

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Speaker 1: offensive to women. However, the original word in Hebrew is ezerconnectdo,

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Speaker 1: and that directly translates to helper equal to. Additionally, God

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Speaker 1: himself describes in the Bible using ezer canneto or helper,

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Speaker 1: and he describes his Holy Spirit as our helper as well.

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Speaker 1: This shows the importance God places on the role of

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Speaker 1: the helper women's roles. God does not view women as

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Speaker 1: less significant than men. He created us with such intentionally

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Speaker 1: and care, and he made women in his image of

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Speaker 1: being a helper and in the image of his beauty.

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Speaker 1: If leaning into that role means I am quote following

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Speaker 1: gender stereotypes that I am happy to be following a

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Speaker 1: stereotype that aligns with the gifts and abilities God gave

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Speaker 1: me as a woman. I do not think men and

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Speaker 1: women are pressured to be more masculine or feminine. I

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Speaker 1: strongly disagree with the idea from the article that encouraging

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Speaker 1: acceptance of diverse gender expressions could improve students' confidence society.

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Speaker 1: Pushing the live that there are multiple genders and everyone

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Speaker 1: to just be whatever they want is demonic and severely

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Speaker 1: harms American youth.

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Speaker 2: I do not want kid to be teased or bullied

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Speaker 2: in school.

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Speaker 1: However, pushing the lie that everyone has their own truth

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Speaker 1: and everyone can just do whatever they want and be

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Speaker 1: whoever they want is not biblical whatsoever. The Bible says

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Speaker 1: that our lives are not our own, but that our

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Speaker 1: lives and bodies belong to.

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Speaker 2: The Lord for his glory.

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Speaker 1: I live my life based on this truth and firmly

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Speaker 1: believe that there would be less gender issues and insecurities

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Speaker 1: and children if they were raised knowing that they do

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Speaker 1: not belong to themselves, but they belong to.

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Speaker 2: The Lord overall.

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Speaker 1: Reading articles such as this one encouraged me to one

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Speaker 1: day raise my children knowing they have a heavenly Father

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Speaker 1: who loves them and cherish and cherishes them deeply, and

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Speaker 1: that having their identity firmly rooted in who He is

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Speaker 1: will give them the satisfaction and acceptance that the world

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Speaker 1: can never provide for them. My prayer for the world,

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Speaker 1: and specifically for American society and youth is that they

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Speaker 1: would not believe the lies being spread from Satan that

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Speaker 1: make them believe they are better off as another gender

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Speaker 1: than what God means them. I pray that they will

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Speaker 1: feel God's love and acceptance as who He originally created

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Speaker 1: them to be.

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Speaker 2: The end.

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Speaker 1: So that's the essay thoughts.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think essay is a good word

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Speaker 3: for what it is. You know, it's it really is

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Speaker 3: responding to a lot of stuff that is just not

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Speaker 3: present in the study at all. It's just an essay

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Speaker 3: about her opinion based on, you know, her religious beliefs,

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Speaker 3: which could be fine in a different course or context.

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Speaker 3: But it doesn't engage with the symptoms of the study

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Speaker 3: at all. Right, and so this is a psychology course.

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Speaker 3: One of the main things about psychology is that we

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Speaker 3: use evidence to inform theories, and like, she doesn't engage

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Speaker 3: with the study. She talks about how she doesn't see

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Speaker 3: gender non typicality as a problem. Okay, Well, in the

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Speaker 3: study they measure it pretty concretely as negative mental health outcomes.

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Speaker 3: They find that boys who have low gender typicality have

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Speaker 3: more negative mental health outcomes, So, like that is a

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Speaker 3: problem there. Maybe she doesn't care about that. Maybe she

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Speaker 3: thinks that's good that those boys are being like teased

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Speaker 3: and feel bad about themselves as a way to enforce

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Speaker 3: gender typicality on them. Maybe she hasn't thought about it

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Speaker 3: that deeply. But she really just doesn't engage with the

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Speaker 3: study much at all. You know, Yeah, I don't know.

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Speaker 3: Those are my initial reactions. What do you think.

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Speaker 1: I feel the same before when I first read her essay,

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Speaker 1: before reading the study that she was assigned to respond to,

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Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, well, she's sort of name checking.

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Speaker 2: What she what she read a few times.

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Speaker 1: That was before I realized what she was assigned to

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Speaker 1: read and respond to was like an actual study.

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Speaker 4: I am.

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Speaker 1: I am no longer convinced that she read the full study.

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Speaker 1: I think that perhaps she read the abstract. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: I know, I'm no longer I've since reading the actual

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Speaker 1: study that she was given to respond to.

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Speaker 2: I've really changed my thinking around this.

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Speaker 1: And you know, she she references the study like, name

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Speaker 1: checks it twice, but doesn't talk about any specifics. Truly,

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Speaker 1: it would be like if I was given an assignment

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Speaker 1: to write about the movie Wicked, and I turned in

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Speaker 1: an article about how I don't like going to the

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Speaker 1: movie theater, I don't like leaving my house, I don't

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Speaker 1: like taking the train.

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Speaker 2: Yet the prices like, it's not really when you when

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Speaker 2: you when you read.

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Speaker 1: The study, it's not really It does not really engage

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Speaker 1: with the study in any kind of meaningful way.

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Speaker 3: The point here is that the study itself is not

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Speaker 3: weighing in on the morality of being highly gender typical

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Speaker 3: or not. It is attempting to measure the phenomenon among

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Speaker 3: kids and measuring a mechanism by which it might be

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Speaker 3: enforced through you know, social norms and other interpersonal dynamics,

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Speaker 3: and then the mental health consequences of that. Like, these

442
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 3: are the things that psychology looks at. It measures constructs,

443
00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:33,920
Speaker 3: and proposes mechanistic theories of how this construct affects this outcome.

444
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:38,479
Speaker 3: The stuff that she's talking about, you know, how kids

445
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:42,120
Speaker 3: should be and saying that like it's better, like better,

446
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:46,960
Speaker 3: how certainly not better for mental health? You know if

447
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:53,680
Speaker 3: you can't. She doesn't even try to put her argument

448
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 3: in the terms of something that could be psychologically measured.

449
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 3: She's just says it's it's better from this morality position,

450
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 3: which is a different thing.

451
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I'm saying.

452
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,959
Speaker 1: I think that she saw the title, read the abstract,

453
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:13,399
Speaker 1: perhaps skinned it, and assumed this is a study that

454
00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 1: it's all about the opinion that you know, we should not.

455
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 2: Be, that bullying is bad, and that.

456
00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:23,880
Speaker 1: Everybody should be quote whatever they want all the time

457
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:26,160
Speaker 1: or whatever. Like I think that she just, like it's

458
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: clear to me that she's making a lot of assumptions

459
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:30,600
Speaker 1: about what is actually in the study, because I don't

460
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 1: think she actually engaged with it in a real way.

461
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, she could have written her whole essay based on

462
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 3: the title alone, Like she didn't even need to read

463
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 3: the abstract, let alone the study itself.

464
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 2: And ultimately, that's what this thing was.

465
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:47,719
Speaker 3: It's not like the Nobel Committee really wanted to know

466
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 3: this particular young woman's thoughts on the subject. This was

467
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:54,919
Speaker 3: an assignment for her to demonstrate to her teacher that

468
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 3: she has learned some of the material that has been

469
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 3: covered in the class, learned about how she, as a

470
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 3: psych major, is expected to talk about studies, talk about constructs,

471
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:14,119
Speaker 3: talk about behavior. And you know, she really failed to

472
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 3: do any of that.

473
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:17,800
Speaker 1: Well, she failed to do any of that, and she

474
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: got a failing grade because this paper got a zero

475
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: out of possible twenty five points.

476
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:24,239
Speaker 2: Here's what she had to say about it.

477
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 5: I just did the assignment and turned it in, and

478
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:30,159
Speaker 5: I talked about the Bible in it. That is, I

479
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:34,199
Speaker 5: view all my opinions in the world through the Bible.

480
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 2: I gave my opinion and not just my opinion.

481
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:41,360
Speaker 5: But that's like, the Bible says that God created male

482
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 5: and female, and anything that's not from God or glorifying

483
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 5: to God is glorifying to the enemy.

484
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 1: I have to say, I am disappointed with how I've

485
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 1: seen this story being framed. I've seen these headlines like

486
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 1: even she describes it as being failed for citing the Bible.

487
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: That's not really correct because her paper doesn't specifically cite

488
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:04,640
Speaker 1: anything at all, really biblical or otherwise. It's just her

489
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 1: opinion and then kind of referencing the Bible and God's

490
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:12,040
Speaker 1: will more generally, so like the idea that she was

491
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: failed for citing the Bible, she don't cite anything like,

492
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 1: that's just not true. I've seen that kind of parroted

493
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 1: over and over again, not crapt.

494
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:23,119
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't just say the word God and be

495
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 3: like I've cited the Bible. No, you haven't.

496
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 1: So the big question is did this paper deserve that

497
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: great zero out of twenty five points? Now I will

498
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 1: own that I have what might be a bit of

499
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: an unpopular opinion about this, But in my opinion, it's

500
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:42,199
Speaker 1: a little bit difficult to say whether or not this

501
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:43,639
Speaker 1: paper deserved a zero.

502
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 2: Obviously, this essay is not good, right, no one is.

503
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 2: I It was not a good essay, not a passing essay.

504
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 1: Turning in an essay that suggests that it's okay to

505
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: bully trans kids.

506
00:27:56,720 --> 00:27:59,000
Speaker 2: Is just like not a good essay, full stop.

507
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: But I've had to grade plenty of essays that espouse

508
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: worldviews that I find abrant. Right like you teach at

509
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:08,399
Speaker 1: a Catholic university, you're gonna get some anti choice essays

510
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 1: that use the Bible to support their reasoning. I've graded

511
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,919
Speaker 1: dozens of papers like that. So the real question to

512
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 1: me is not is this a good paper or a

513
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:18,120
Speaker 1: bad paper? It's obviously a bad paper, that's not the question.

514
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: The real question is is this a failing paper along

515
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 1: the criteria outlined in the rubric? Because ask people who

516
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: have been in the classroom and graded student papers, the

517
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: most important thing in grading is the rubric. You've got

518
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 1: to have an ironclad rubric that students get ahead of time,

519
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: so that if a student complains or there is confusion

520
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: about why they got a grade, you just go back

521
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 1: to the rubric and explain why, but also sort of

522
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 1: defend yourself. Was that your experience in teaching writing assignments

523
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: as well?

524
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 3: Yeah? Totally, and even more generally than that, I think

525
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 3: it's good when expectations are very clear, like it's yes,

526
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 3: it is, uh, cover your ass document and defend yourself

527
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 3: against students who have complaints, but also it is like

528
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 3: a fair good faith document to make sure we're all

529
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 3: on the same page. We all have the same expectations.

530
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 3: Yeah and yeah you got. You have to have a

531
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:22,479
Speaker 3: good rubric, good description of what students are being asked

532
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 3: to do.

533
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 1: So I have the grading rubric here. It gives a

534
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: little bit of an outline of what of Like the mechanics.

535
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 1: It has to be six hundred and fifty words. If

536
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 1: it's less than that, it will not get credit. If

537
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 1: it's past a deadline or lock of credit. It says,

538
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: please remember that your reaction paper should not be a summary,

539
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 1: but rather a thoughtful discussion of some aspect of the article.

540
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: It lays out a couple of potential approaches to the

541
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 1: reaction you know, things like a discussion of why you

542
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 1: feel the topic is important and worthy of study or not.

543
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: An application of the study or results to your own experiences,

544
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: an application of the study or results to observations about others' behaviors,

545
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: linking the objectives or findings from the assigned article to

546
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: other domains of development, or other findings that we have

547
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: read or discussed in class. But then it also says

548
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: there are other possibilities as well. The best reaction papers

549
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: illustrate that students have read the assigned materials and engage

550
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 1: in critical thinking about some aspect of the article. Now

551
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: here's the important bit of that. The actual grading rubric scale.

552
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 1: The scale is as followed.

553
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 4: One.

554
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 1: Does the paper show a clear tie in to the

555
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 1: assigned article?

556
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 2: Ten points? Two?

557
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: Does the paper present a thoughtful reaction or response to

558
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 1: the article rather than a summary ten points? Three? Is

559
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 1: the paper clearly written five points? I will say after

560
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: taking a look at this rubric, I was surprised that

561
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: it was not the most specific. Now it is entirely

562
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: possible that there are other grading expectations that have been

563
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: made clear in this class. For instance, perhaps the syllabus

564
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 1: says that all written work needs to include citations, or

565
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 1: maybe the instructor said that verbally in class. There can

566
00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: be no confusion about it unless you weren't listening. But

567
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 1: just going from this rubric as written, I have to

568
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: say I was a little bit surprised to see that

569
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 1: this grading rubric was not the most specific for a

570
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: college course.

571
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts?

572
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 3: I agree, I think also, you know, I think we're

573
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 3: going to get to the instructor pretty soon. But the

574
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 3: instructor is a graduate student themselves, right, and so they

575
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 3: probably do not have extensive experience teaching. And I would

576
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 3: make a bet that after this experience of getting dragged

577
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,960
Speaker 3: through the national news, they will approach their grading rubrics

578
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 3: with fresh eyes in the future and perhaps firm them

579
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 3: up a little bit. But I agree with you, it's

580
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 3: a little bit vague about what exactly is needed, and

581
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 3: in fact it does seem pretty permissible, like stepping back

582
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 3: from exactly what it calls for. My overall takeaway from

583
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 3: this is like, right, a six hundred and fifty word

584
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 3: thing that shows that you read the article and demonstrate

585
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 3: some critical thought about it. I think that's really what's

586
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 3: being asked for here. But you know, they list these

587
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 3: eight separate possible approaches that might be taken. They say

588
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 3: that other possibilities could exist as well. So it does

589
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 3: give the sense that it is fairly open about how

590
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 3: a student might complete this assignment. One thing that I

591
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 3: do want to that I do wonder about, is you know,

592
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 3: at what point in the semester was this assignment done,

593
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 3: Because it gives the sense of an assignment that is,

594
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 3: like every week students are going to be reading a

595
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 3: paper and writing one of these little six hundred and

596
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 3: fifty word responses. And so if this happened late in

597
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 3: the semester, it's kind of a different thing that have

598
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 3: happened early in the semester. Right of if this is

599
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:44,440
Speaker 3: the first paper that somebody turned in, you know, I

600
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 3: might grade it one way and then have a conversation

601
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 3: with that student about like, you know, I gave you

602
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 3: a decent grade here, but in the future, I'm going

603
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 3: to be looking for x YZ, just to get us

604
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 3: aligned on what the expectations are. But it happened late

605
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 3: in semester, it makes me wonder has this been a

606
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 3: pattern all semester long where this student just turns in

607
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 3: garbage after garbage and refuses to listen to feedback. I

608
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 3: don't know if that's what's happening or not, but it

609
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 3: does feel like it would be important context within that

610
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 3: particular classroom before this whole thing blew up and became

611
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 3: national news.

612
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 1: So Samantha does say that she turned she had she's

613
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,360
Speaker 1: already had several assignments of this nature in this class,

614
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 1: and that she's done them all the same way, and

615
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: that she's never received a bad grade, and that this

616
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 1: was her first bad grade.

617
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 2: I cannot vouch for that, but that's what she said

618
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 2: in an.

619
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: Interview, and it does sort of to me seemed to

620
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 1: set up a very convenient pattern because the instructor who

621
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 1: gave her this grade is trans And I think that

622
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 1: what Samantha is trying to suggest is that, oh, my

623
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: instructor didn't have a problem when I turned in all

624
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: these essays the exact same way. But when I turn

625
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 1: in one where I say that, you know, being trans

626
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: is demonic, all of a sudden, the instructor has a

627
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:09,359
Speaker 1: problem and gives me a zero. That's sort of what

628
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:13,800
Speaker 1: I think is being set up here. Again, I cannot

629
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 1: speak to the truth of whether or not it is

630
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 1: true that she has tarned that the student has turned

631
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 1: in several papers the exact same way, but this is

632
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: what she says. Huh.

633
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,279
Speaker 3: It is kind of hard to believe that, like, she's

634
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 3: just been turning in psychology papers that are supposed to

635
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:36,279
Speaker 3: be critiquing and responding to studies, and if she's just

636
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 3: been turning them all in offering her moral opinions about

637
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 3: how people should lead their lives without addressing the substance

638
00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 3: of any of the studies, and she's been getting good

639
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 3: grades for them the whole time. I find that a

640
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:50,960
Speaker 3: little difficult to believe.

641
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:52,399
Speaker 2: Same, same, same, same.

642
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:55,480
Speaker 1: What grade would you give this paper if somebody turns

643
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 1: it in one of your psych classes?

644
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 3: So again, it does it would matter if it was

645
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 3: the beginning of the semester or or later on. But

646
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 3: I giving the student the benefit of the doubt, which

647
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 3: I generally like to do until they give me reason

648
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 3: not to, you know, I'd probably I probably would have

649
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 3: given her like a ten or something like that, like

650
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 3: it was the right length, it addressed the topic, you know,

651
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:25,320
Speaker 3: I try to be generous again, giving the benefit of

652
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 3: the doubt, you know, And it would also I might

653
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 3: call on her in class to share her opinion and insane.

654
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 1: You would give the student of a platform like I

655
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 1: would have already been like this students a problem. The

656
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:46,439
Speaker 1: way to deal with them is to not give them

657
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: the attention that they are so clearly asking for.

658
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 2: This is exactly the wrong kind.

659
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:53,800
Speaker 1: Of student to be like, oh, the floor is yours.

660
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: Tell us why you feel this way.

661
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:59,399
Speaker 3: Well, then the part that would happen after that is

662
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:01,759
Speaker 3: that we would use the class to explain why this

663
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 3: response is like not psychology and not what is being

664
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 3: looked for in this type of assignment, and really misses

665
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 3: the entire point of what the study is trying to do.

666
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 2: Oh, this is so I know exactly what you should do.

667
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 2: Have it be a peer review day.

668
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 1: Match her up with the student who you know is

669
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: going to be like, cannot wait to tear this essay apart,

670
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: and really you know that's you got to Yeah that

671
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 1: I'm with you on that.

672
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 2: I'm with you on that.

673
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, make it a learning opportunity. I don't know exactly

674
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 3: what the right approach would be, but I don't know,

675
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 3: but I guess I'm giving way too much credit because

676
00:36:45,160 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 3: some of the stuff that we haven't got to yet,

677
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:49,880
Speaker 3: it doesn't seem like she's really acting in good faith here.

678
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:53,319
Speaker 5: More.

679
00:36:53,360 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 1: After a quick break, let's get right back into it.

680
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:10,919
Speaker 1: We've been talking about this just because we're educators from

681
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 1: a perspective of like if a student had meaningfully turned

682
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 1: this essay in and good faith spoiler alert, I do

683
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 1: not believe that's what's going on here, But just for

684
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 1: the sake of argument, let's talk about it.

685
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:22,319
Speaker 2: In that is, if that's what's going on.

686
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so what grade would you have given. If

687
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 3: this was just a run of the mill, good faith

688
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:31,399
Speaker 3: student turns this in.

689
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 1: I could go as high as eight out of twenty five.

690
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:37,719
Speaker 1: I could see ten, and I still have lots of

691
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 1: friends who are in academia. Who are you know, lecturers

692
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 1: and adjuncts and instructors.

693
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:44,280
Speaker 2: I asked around.

694
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:49,439
Speaker 1: Generally it fell somewhere between like three and ten. Ten

695
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:51,359
Speaker 1: was the highest grade anybody was willing to go, which

696
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: is still a failing grade.

697
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:56,439
Speaker 2: I could probably go as high as eight on this.

698
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:01,719
Speaker 1: However, in my class, a zero is for somebody who

699
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:05,839
Speaker 1: didn't turn something in, plagiarized, or had some other kind

700
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:08,919
Speaker 1: of like big problem if you, A zero is for

701
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 1: no effort made. This is a failing paper, to be sure.

702
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: But in my cause, I don't think I would have

703
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 1: given it in a zero. Honestly, this probably would have

704
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 1: been a SeeMe situation. Again, it does sort of does

705
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:22,320
Speaker 1: go back to your point of like when in the

706
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 1: semester did this happen?

707
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 2: You know?

708
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 1: I could see being like, if this is how you feel,

709
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 1: you need to go back and actually meaningfully engage with

710
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 1: the source tex to support what you're saying.

711
00:38:36,080 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, or like rewrite this and turn it in and

712
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:40,320
Speaker 3: I'll grade that or something.

713
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:43,440
Speaker 1: Yes, And I will say a lot of people online

714
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 1: have been saying, how this is just not a well

715
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:48,799
Speaker 1: written assignment. How could somebody who was a junior at

716
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:52,160
Speaker 1: a university turn this turn work like this in I

717
00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:54,960
Speaker 1: am sad to say it is not wildly out of

718
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:57,600
Speaker 1: staff with the kinds of assignments that instructors are used

719
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 1: to seeing. That Chronicle of Higher Educations spoke to Oliver Treldy,

720
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:04,399
Speaker 1: an assistant professor at the Institute of American Constitutional Thought

721
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 1: and Leadership at the University of Toledo, who said that

722
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 1: while lots of people were.

723
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 2: Completely shocked at the quality of.

724
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:14,640
Speaker 1: The writing here, if you create a lot of papers,

725
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:16,360
Speaker 1: it is not at a shocking level.

726
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 2: It is kind of at that level that, although it's lower.

727
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: Than what you want and certainly lower than average, it's

728
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:24,720
Speaker 1: the sort of paper that you're used to seeing, which

729
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 1: is kind of sad but true. And I think one

730
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:29,400
Speaker 1: of the issues that is getting sort of lost in

731
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:32,320
Speaker 1: the sauce of the obvious culture war issue being stoked

732
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: here is that reality that that kind of writing that

733
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 1: students are turning in this is not shockingly bad. This

734
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 1: is probably like baseline and like, shouldn't we be talking

735
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:45,359
Speaker 1: about that?

736
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:48,200
Speaker 2: Shouldn't that be a concern, a cause for concern.

737
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:52,880
Speaker 3: Seriously, you did a nice job reading it, kind of

738
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 3: smoothing over some of the grammatical errors. Yes, it's just

739
00:39:57,200 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 3: riddled with grammatical errors. There's no other way to say that.

740
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:04,799
Speaker 1: So, because the instructor of this class is trans, what

741
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 1: is obviously being set up here is that the instructor

742
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 1: was just personally offended by what Samantha wrote.

743
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:12,720
Speaker 2: And that's what her bad grade was all about.

744
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 1: However, in the feedback that the instructor left for Samantha,

745
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:18,319
Speaker 1: they don't say this at all. So the instructor of

746
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 1: this class, Melkirk, who was a decorated instructor who had

747
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 1: just won the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award from oeu's Department

748
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 1: of Psychology, who also happens to be trans, gave Samantha

749
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 1: the grade. They left what I would consider to be

750
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 1: pretty thoughtful feedback. In this feedback to full NECKI, the

751
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,960
Speaker 1: instructor insisted that they were not panalizing the student for

752
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 1: her personal beliefs, but wrote, quote, there is an appropriate

753
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:44,239
Speaker 1: time or place to implement them in your reflections. I

754
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 1: encourage all students to question or challenge the course material

755
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: with other empirical findings or testable hypotheses, but using your

756
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 1: own personal beliefs to argue against the findings of not

757
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:58,719
Speaker 1: only this article, but the findings of countless articles across psychology, biology, sociology, etc.

758
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: Is not best practice. They also implored the student to

759
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:05,759
Speaker 1: apply some more perspective and empathy in her work and

760
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: told her that quote calling an entire group of people

761
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 1: demonic is highly ofthensive, especially a minoritized population. I will

762
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: say shout out to this instructor because the feet they gave,

763
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:21,360
Speaker 1: like I'm only even reading just a segment of it,

764
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:23,799
Speaker 1: but the feedback that they gave again, I.

765
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 2: Think really engaged with the what was written in good faith.

766
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 1: Nowhere in the feedback was it like you obviously hate

767
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 1: trans people like me, and that's why you're failing. I

768
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: think you know, saying if this is how you feel,

769
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:42,280
Speaker 1: you need to come with some you know, some hypothesis

770
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 1: or empirical findings to support or challenge what you don't

771
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 1: agree with in this piece, and like laying out a

772
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 1: pathway to do that, as you said, And so the

773
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 1: idea that I don't think that an instructor who was

774
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 1: just super sensitive and offended by what was written would

775
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:03,080
Speaker 1: give such substantive feedback on an essay like this, That's

776
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:04,120
Speaker 1: truly what was going on.

777
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:08,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does seem like the instructor really tried to

778
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 3: provide guidance about why the student received a failing grade. Here,

779
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:17,320
Speaker 3: what they could have done differently to get a better grade.

780
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 3: And yeah, it seems like the student really needs to

781
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:23,839
Speaker 3: hear that in a big way.

782
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:27,399
Speaker 1: Yes, And so it sounds like when a student gets

783
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 1: a failing grade and has a complaint about that, another

784
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:32,839
Speaker 1: instructor gives a second set of eyes to make sure

785
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 1: that grade was warranted. So another instructor for this course,

786
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: Megan Waldron, who is not trans said that they took

787
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 1: a look at it and concurred with the initial f grade,

788
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 1: saying that Samantha's essay quote should not be considered as

789
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:49,280
Speaker 1: a completion of the assignment. Similarly gave feedback to Samantha

790
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 1: that said, hey, be more thoughtful and cite some sort

791
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: of empirical evidence. It's not just your opinions on God

792
00:42:56,840 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 1: to buttress the arguments that you're.

793
00:42:58,280 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 2: Making in your peace.

794
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:02,759
Speaker 1: So a two different instructors now have given I would say,

795
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:06,400
Speaker 1: like very good, thoughtful feedback on what went wrong and

796
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:07,960
Speaker 1: how to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

797
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:09,880
Speaker 2: For this kind of assignment.

798
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:13,399
Speaker 3: Yeah, cite some empirical evidence. That's the whole thing. This

799
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:17,840
Speaker 3: is not religious studies, this is psychology. Cite some empirical evidence,

800
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:20,160
Speaker 3: either from the study that you're supposed to be responding to,

801
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 3: talk about some of their data or methods, or bring

802
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:29,960
Speaker 3: in some other studies that maybe support what you're saying

803
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 3: in some kind of way where they have measured something.

804
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 3: Cite some empirical evidence. That's good practice, and really it's

805
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:43,360
Speaker 3: good practice for everybody in all sorts of disciplines.

806
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 1: Oh man, this is a bit of a non sequitor,

807
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:46,920
Speaker 1: But I don't know if you felt this way when

808
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: you were teaching. One of my favorite kind of students

809
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 1: to teach was like smartasses, and I used to have

810
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:55,920
Speaker 1: as part of my syllabus, like one of the assigments

811
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 1: that you had to do was a had a public

812
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 1: speaking component, so you had test of present findings on

813
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 1: a topic of your choice and then support it with

814
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:06,360
Speaker 1: research that you did as part of a research project.

815
00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:11,760
Speaker 1: And one of my students the topic of their public

816
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 1: speaking assignment was why they did not think it was

817
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:18,839
Speaker 1: fair to have a public speaking component of a writing.

818
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:21,799
Speaker 2: Class, and damned if they had not gotten.

819
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:24,920
Speaker 1: Very good research, Like they were able to cite each argument,

820
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:28,759
Speaker 1: and I felt personally called out, but I was very proud.

821
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 1: I was like, damn, he really went through a lot

822
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 1: of trouble to find empirical sources that are like, here's

823
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 1: why expressing yourself verbally in front of the class should

824
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:39,680
Speaker 1: not be a component of a writing class, and.

825
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 2: He got today.

826
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: So I didn't happen to agree with it, but he

827
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: did a great job of presenting the argument and backing

828
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:47,400
Speaker 1: it up with data and research.

829
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:49,839
Speaker 2: My hands were tied there.

830
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 3: You go, yeah, good on you for not giving him

831
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:56,840
Speaker 3: a zero because you disagreed with what he was saying.

832
00:44:57,080 --> 00:44:59,319
Speaker 3: As this student is a legend was done here.

833
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 1: I mean when you're when you're when you were an instructor,

834
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:05,080
Speaker 1: you get all kinds of students, semester of dismester, you

835
00:45:05,120 --> 00:45:06,280
Speaker 1: see all kinds of assignments.

836
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:08,920
Speaker 2: The idea that this would have been.

837
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:12,879
Speaker 1: The first time that a trans instructor has maybe seen

838
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: an essay from a student that was, to put it mildly,

839
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: not the most empathetic toward the trans community. I highly,

840
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:25,880
Speaker 1: highly doubt that this was the first time that instructor

841
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 1: received an essay like this, And so I think this

842
00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: idea that, oh, this instructor was just super sensitive and

843
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: couldn't handle it and got offended. That's so out of stuff.

844
00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 1: With how minoritized people live their lives. People always think like, oh,

845
00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:41,319
Speaker 1: this is the first time that they've encountered this kind

846
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:43,200
Speaker 1: of attitude, and it's like, no, actually it's a dime

847
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: a does it? And like we're encountering shit like this

848
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:46,800
Speaker 1: all the time and have to dis roll with it

849
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 1: if you want to have careers. Actually, this is You're

850
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:52,440
Speaker 1: not special, You're not unique, like truly, come on.

851
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, you think this is the first time that they

852
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 3: encountered some anti a trans sentiment.

853
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 1: No, So, needless to say, Antha was not happy to

854
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:04,400
Speaker 1: get a zero on her assignment. Now, according to the

855
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 1: academic grade policy at University of Oklahoma, an appeal can

856
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 1: only be considered after the student has made an unsuccessful

857
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 1: attempt to resolve differences with the instructor.

858
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 2: According to reporting from.

859
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 1: The Oklahoma And Samantha disputed this grade at the graduate

860
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:19,400
Speaker 1: instructor and was still denied credit for the assignment, so

861
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:23,240
Speaker 1: she filed a formal claim of a legal discrimination based

862
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 1: on religious beliefs, and, according to The New York Times,

863
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:30,320
Speaker 1: just hours after the instructor refused to raise her grade,

864
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 1: Samantha emailed the Governor of Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma President

865
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 1: Joe Harris Junior, her college is Dean news outlet, and

866
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 1: the Teacher Freedom Alliance led by the Former States led

867
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 1: by former Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters, who if that name

868
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:49,360
Speaker 1: sounds familiar to you, we've spoken about him before. He

869
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:52,400
Speaker 1: is the person who demanded that all schools teach the

870
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 1: Bible and that all teachers who are not from Oklahoma

871
00:46:55,520 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 1: pass a screening test to ward off quote woke indoctrination.

872
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 1: She emailed all of these people within hours of this

873
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:06,759
Speaker 1: instructor declining to give a different grade. Her paper was

874
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 1: then published in full on the social media account of

875
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: the University of Oklahoma chapter of Turning Points USA, the

876
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:17,080
Speaker 1: organization started by the late Charlie Kirk, saying that she

877
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 1: cited the Bible as her only source, but really did

878
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 1: not seem to grapple much with the content of the

879
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:24,440
Speaker 1: original source material.

880
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:26,240
Speaker 2: This I actually found very funny.

881
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:28,919
Speaker 1: Because I was looking at the social media posts about

882
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:31,800
Speaker 1: this from Turning Points, USA, and they were really posting

883
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 1: that paper like a gotcha, Like they thought, Samantha ate

884
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:35,800
Speaker 1: with that paper?

885
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:37,359
Speaker 2: Does this paper.

886
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:39,839
Speaker 1: Deserve an F And what's funny is that in like

887
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: writing teacher pedagogy circles, It's like, oh yeah, it actually

888
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:46,719
Speaker 1: the essay actually has worked a conversation about how bad

889
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:48,120
Speaker 1: student writing has got.

890
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 3: It really like that is perhaps the most shocking thing

891
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:55,360
Speaker 3: of this entire story to me, that she was willing

892
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:58,280
Speaker 3: to publish that paper online and thought that it would

893
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:01,440
Speaker 3: make her look good in some way. It's so bad,

894
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 3: Like it makes her look like she writes like a

895
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:06,760
Speaker 3: middle schooler, because that is the level at which she writes.

896
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 1: So in a response on social media, the University of

897
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 1: Oklahoma said that it is launching an investigation. They also

898
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: said that full Necki would not suffer any academic harm

899
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:19,640
Speaker 1: from the grade. I don't know exactly what that means,

900
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:21,799
Speaker 1: but I think what they're saying is like, I don't

901
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:24,280
Speaker 1: know if they're saying this grade on this one assignment

902
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 1: is going to be thrown out, or if she's not

903
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 1: at risk of failing the class.

904
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:30,480
Speaker 2: So it's not going to impact her GPA.

905
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:32,840
Speaker 1: I'm not totally sure what that means, but to me,

906
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 1: it kind of seems like, even though this investigation has

907
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 1: not been completed, it kind of sounds to me like

908
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:41,959
Speaker 1: she sort of already won. They already decided that she's

909
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:45,560
Speaker 1: not going to have to actually, you know, endure this

910
00:48:45,680 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 1: grade that she got.

911
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is what it sounds like. I'm sure the

912
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:54,040
Speaker 3: university just wants to move on from this, and like

913
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:58,920
Speaker 3: perhaps she's won this battle of not receiving a failing

914
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:01,319
Speaker 3: mark on this paper. This dragged out her grade, But

915
00:49:01,520 --> 00:49:03,919
Speaker 3: I do feel like she's losing the larger war by

916
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 3: having that thing posted on the internet for all of time,

917
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 3: as riddled as it is with grammatical errors, logical fallacies, vapidness.

918
00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:19,319
Speaker 1: Yes, so I have to say the instructor mel is

919
00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:22,760
Speaker 1: being put on leave during the investigation and as essentially

920
00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 1: not coming back to finish out the semester. I have

921
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:28,279
Speaker 1: not seen a lot of people reporting on just how

922
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:30,719
Speaker 1: disruptive this could potentially be to somebody who was also

923
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:31,880
Speaker 1: in graduate school.

924
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 2: A lot of times, as you and I both did.

925
00:49:34,239 --> 00:49:37,320
Speaker 1: The way that grad students pay for school is through teaching,

926
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 1: and if an instructor is not teaching. They might not

927
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:41,319
Speaker 1: be able to pay for their classes, so it can

928
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:45,160
Speaker 1: potentially derailed their coursework. So being put on leave as

929
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:49,719
Speaker 1: a graduate student and then instructor is no small thing.

930
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:53,920
Speaker 1: It could really have a negative impact on this person's

931
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 1: schooling and this education that they are entitled to.

932
00:49:56,719 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 3: I do really feel bad for the instructor here, because

933
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:02,280
Speaker 3: grad school is also very stressful. You know, you're trying

934
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:05,800
Speaker 3: to teach at probably this might not even be the

935
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:08,920
Speaker 3: only course that this instructor is teaching this semester, and

936
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:12,640
Speaker 3: also trying to do their own coursework and also trying

937
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:14,799
Speaker 3: to do research towards their dissertation.

938
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:16,160
Speaker 2: It's just a.

939
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:23,279
Speaker 3: Stressful, difficult time. Also, you're broke through the entire thing.

940
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 3: So having this kind of big national I don't know,

941
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:35,800
Speaker 3: news story where you've got turning Point USA rallying the

942
00:50:35,840 --> 00:50:41,680
Speaker 3: anti transmob online to come down on this instructor and

943
00:50:41,719 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 3: their whole department. I really feel for the instructor.

944
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:49,560
Speaker 1: Me too, And I guess that's my big point is

945
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 1: that I don't believe this, But let's say, for the

946
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:57,279
Speaker 1: sake of argument, that this instructor the paper deserved a

947
00:50:57,360 --> 00:50:59,840
Speaker 1: higher grade than I've got this instructor got it wrong,

948
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 1: should have gotten a higher grade. Is that the kind

949
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:08,480
Speaker 1: of thing that deserves a national outcry? Is that situation

950
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,680
Speaker 1: made better for anybody other than the student to have

951
00:51:12,760 --> 00:51:16,560
Speaker 1: that be something that is completely blown up where national

952
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:19,200
Speaker 1: figures are weighing in and it becomes a flashpoint, I

953
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:21,799
Speaker 1: would argue, no, I mean, and I think that's what

954
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:26,600
Speaker 1: extremists and that culture warriors like people associated with Turning

955
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 1: Points USA want. So Turning Points USA, which we know

956
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:31,839
Speaker 1: is was formed by the late Charlie Kirk, has been

957
00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:36,320
Speaker 1: all over this. They put out a very hateful statement,

958
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:40,439
Speaker 1: misgendering the instructor mel Kirk, of course, calling for them

959
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:43,440
Speaker 1: to be fired because this instructor is trans. The way

960
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:46,759
Speaker 1: it's being talked about in these conservative media circles, it's

961
00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:51,280
Speaker 1: probably pretty unshocking. This trans educator is trampling a student's

962
00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:55,480
Speaker 1: freedom of speech for being Christian. We have lawmakers weighing in.

963
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:58,960
Speaker 1: Kevin Stitt, the governor of Oklahoma, describe the situation as

964
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 1: deeply concerning and it's calming on the University of Oklahoma

965
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:04,560
Speaker 1: regions to review the investigation to ensure that other students

966
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:08,880
Speaker 1: are not unfairly panealized for their beliefs. Mind you, I

967
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:11,240
Speaker 1: don't think this person was penalized for their beliefs.

968
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 2: I think they were being panalized for their shit writing.

969
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 3: I think, like, yeah, there's shit writing, their inability to

970
00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 3: engage with the substance of the study as evidence. I

971
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:24,920
Speaker 3: get so annoyed that they're talking about this as a

972
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:28,240
Speaker 3: freedom of speech issue. Like, freedom of speech has nothing

973
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:31,000
Speaker 3: to do with this. It's not like she's being locked

974
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:35,000
Speaker 3: up for her beliefs or something. She's just not getting

975
00:52:35,280 --> 00:52:39,399
Speaker 3: points on a written assignment that she thinks she ought

976
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:43,400
Speaker 3: to have gotten because she didn't do the assignment. It's

977
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 3: like she's supposed to be learning something from the instructor.

978
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:50,440
Speaker 3: The instructor says, you did not learn the thing that

979
00:52:50,480 --> 00:52:53,080
Speaker 3: you needed to learn. You did not demonstrate that you

980
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:55,840
Speaker 3: have internalized these skills that we're trying to teach you.

981
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 3: You get a failing grade. Whether or not the instructor

982
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:01,799
Speaker 3: was writing that. That's just like how it is. The

983
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:05,080
Speaker 3: freedom of speech has nothing to do with this. This

984
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 3: is a pedagogical thing.

985
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:11,080
Speaker 1: When I was in college, I once got super drunk

986
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 1: the day before an assignment and didn't show up and

987
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:15,200
Speaker 1: got a zero because I didn't show up.

988
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:16,280
Speaker 2: That was freedom of speech.

989
00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:20,440
Speaker 1: Actually, you know I should if we were if we should,

990
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:22,840
Speaker 1: if we were allowed to just say, actually, it's freedom

991
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:24,680
Speaker 1: of speech that I should get a one hundred even

992
00:53:24,680 --> 00:53:26,640
Speaker 1: though I didn't show up and do the assignment. I

993
00:53:26,680 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 1: wish I could go back in time and and and

994
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:30,720
Speaker 1: and use that dynamic, because.

995
00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:32,000
Speaker 2: Boy would I have used the shit out of that.

996
00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 2: Help help, I'm being oppressed.

997
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:39,279
Speaker 5: More.

998
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 1: After a quick break, let's get right back into it.

999
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:56,319
Speaker 1: How many of these conservative figures have spent so long

1000
00:53:56,440 --> 00:54:01,000
Speaker 1: decrying things like DEEI, people getting things that they haven't deserved.

1001
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:04,719
Speaker 1: You know, suck it up, buttercop work hard, dah da,

1002
00:54:04,800 --> 00:54:06,400
Speaker 1: d da, nobody cares about your feelings.

1003
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:08,760
Speaker 2: But also this girl deserves an.

1004
00:54:08,640 --> 00:54:12,120
Speaker 3: A yeah, tales all his time, you know what about

1005
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:13,200
Speaker 3: her feelings.

1006
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: So Dusty Deavers, Oklahoma state senator, released a statement saying

1007
00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:19,399
Speaker 1: that he believed FULNECKI was given a low grade because

1008
00:54:19,440 --> 00:54:22,560
Speaker 1: the instructor was offended, and again he said that the

1009
00:54:22,600 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 1: issue raises serious First Amendment concerns, saying that it's looking

1010
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:30,000
Speaker 1: a lot like unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination by a state actor.

1011
00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 3: It really isn't, I mean, that's sorry, Dusty Deavers, It's

1012
00:54:34,719 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 3: really not.

1013
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:38,880
Speaker 1: But I guess that's my point is that it's totally

1014
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:41,799
Speaker 1: fine for her to not be happy with the grade

1015
00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:43,719
Speaker 1: that she got. I wouldn't be happy if I don't.

1016
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:46,640
Speaker 1: Nobody likes getting bad grades. But making this an issue

1017
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:50,000
Speaker 1: where the governor and your state senator are weighing in,

1018
00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:53,680
Speaker 1: I don't think helps anybody. And this is just my

1019
00:54:54,239 --> 00:54:56,520
Speaker 1: opinion based on my own sense of health. Stuff like

1020
00:54:56,520 --> 00:54:59,360
Speaker 1: this usually goes in media, but I think this whole

1021
00:54:59,400 --> 00:55:02,799
Speaker 1: thing is is essentially a false flag. Do you know

1022
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:04,200
Speaker 1: the phrase rat fucking?

1023
00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:08,360
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, as an American living in the twenty first century,

1024
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:10,720
Speaker 3: I am intimately familiar with rat fucking.

1025
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:14,000
Speaker 1: So for folks who don't know, rat fucking is kind

1026
00:55:14,000 --> 00:55:19,560
Speaker 1: of behind the scenes, covert political sabotage or political dirty trick.

1027
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:21,360
Speaker 2: I've described that more or less correctly.

1028
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:25,480
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that sounds generally consistent with my understanding of it.

1029
00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:30,239
Speaker 3: You got all these disingenuous actors playing political games, fucking

1030
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:31,440
Speaker 3: rats behind the scenes.

1031
00:55:31,840 --> 00:55:35,360
Speaker 1: So I think that she wrote this essay on purpose

1032
00:55:35,719 --> 00:55:38,680
Speaker 1: with the intention of contacting turning points.

1033
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:39,160
Speaker 2: Usay.

1034
00:55:39,560 --> 00:55:44,320
Speaker 1: Fox News has sort of become the latest right wing

1035
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:48,760
Speaker 1: grievance celebrity. Bull Necki's mother, Christy Bolnecki, is a lawyer

1036
00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:53,120
Speaker 1: who defended a number of January sixth rioters and once

1037
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:55,719
Speaker 1: sued the public school system to force the school to

1038
00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:58,120
Speaker 1: go back to doing in person schooling during COVID.

1039
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:01,600
Speaker 2: I am unwilling to believe that that is not part

1040
00:56:01,640 --> 00:56:01,800
Speaker 2: of this.

1041
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:05,359
Speaker 1: As Parker Maloy of The present Age Newsletter points out,

1042
00:56:05,400 --> 00:56:09,320
Speaker 1: Bolnicki's mom is retweeting posts that say things like, quote,

1043
00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 1: if you claim to be a transgender, you should be

1044
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:15,840
Speaker 1: banned from working at any school. Transgenderism is a mental illness,

1045
00:56:15,880 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 1: and quote individuals who identify as trans should be automatically

1046
00:56:20,200 --> 00:56:23,600
Speaker 1: disqualified from holding any position as teacher or professor. To

1047
00:56:23,640 --> 00:56:26,319
Speaker 1: that last one, the post that was explicitly calling for

1048
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:31,280
Speaker 1: employment discrimination against all trans people, Christy Samantha's mom replied

1049
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:35,720
Speaker 1: and said, agreed, proud of my daughter. So, as Parker

1050
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:38,960
Speaker 1: Malloy points out, like that really is the tell. This

1051
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:41,360
Speaker 1: is not about this one class, or this one paper,

1052
00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:44,960
Speaker 1: or even about this one trans instructor quote, because the

1053
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:48,959
Speaker 1: family is not arguing that this particular grading decision was wrong.

1054
00:56:49,200 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 1: They're in fact celebrating their daughter's role in a broader

1055
00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:56,960
Speaker 1: campaign to make trans people unemployable. The discrimination complaint, the

1056
00:56:57,000 --> 00:56:59,759
Speaker 1: media tour, the outrage. It is all in service of

1057
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:03,640
Speaker 1: the stated very plainly in the posts that Christy Fulnecki

1058
00:57:03,719 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: is boosting trans people should not be allowed to work

1059
00:57:07,160 --> 00:57:10,880
Speaker 1: in education. So I completely agree with Performerloy here. It

1060
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:14,760
Speaker 1: is not really about this one paper, because the larger

1061
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:18,760
Speaker 1: point is about pushing trans people out of education and

1062
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:21,640
Speaker 1: creating a climate of fear where trans folks just feel like, oh,

1063
00:57:21,680 --> 00:57:23,320
Speaker 1: I better just keep my head down because I don't

1064
00:57:23,320 --> 00:57:25,920
Speaker 1: want to be the next, you know, right wing villain

1065
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:27,880
Speaker 1: because I did my job in a classroom.

1066
00:57:28,240 --> 00:57:31,919
Speaker 3: Absolutely, they've been doing it for years now, and they've

1067
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 3: got like a well oiled machine of targeting individual, hapless

1068
00:57:37,720 --> 00:57:41,280
Speaker 3: trans people who happen to get caught up in their crosshairs.

1069
00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:44,640
Speaker 1: As Malloy puts it, this is an industry now. There

1070
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:48,160
Speaker 1: are jobs, salaries, speaker bureaus, and career tracks. The right

1071
00:57:48,280 --> 00:57:51,000
Speaker 1: is always looking for new faces to put on this movement,

1072
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:54,600
Speaker 1: Young photogenic people who can be positioned as victims of

1073
00:57:54,680 --> 00:57:58,080
Speaker 1: trans overreach. The d transitioner who regrets her surgery, the

1074
00:57:58,160 --> 00:58:01,160
Speaker 1: swimmer who tied with a transwoman, the Christian student whose

1075
00:58:01,240 --> 00:58:04,520
Speaker 1: essay got a bad grade. Samantha Fullnecki fits the profile.

1076
00:58:04,640 --> 00:58:06,960
Speaker 1: She's a college student, she's Christian, she wrote about her

1077
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:09,320
Speaker 1: faith and got a bad grade from a trans instructor.

1078
00:58:09,480 --> 00:58:11,920
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter that the essay was genuinely bad, that

1079
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:14,920
Speaker 1: two instructors agreed on the assessment, that the feedback was

1080
00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:18,120
Speaker 1: professional and patient, or that the grading rubric supports a decision.

1081
00:58:18,320 --> 00:58:21,800
Speaker 1: The narrative rights itself. Trans professor fails Christian student for

1082
00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:24,600
Speaker 1: quoting the Bible. What full Necki's mother is saying out

1083
00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:26,720
Speaker 1: loud that trans people should not be allowed to teach

1084
00:58:26,760 --> 00:58:30,040
Speaker 1: at all is what this movement actually wants. The individual

1085
00:58:30,040 --> 00:58:32,880
Speaker 1: controversies are just vehicles to get there. Each one is

1086
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 1: designed to make an example of a trans person, to

1087
00:58:35,200 --> 00:58:38,400
Speaker 1: signal to every other trans person in education, or healthcare,

1088
00:58:38,520 --> 00:58:41,120
Speaker 1: or any public facing role. This could happen to you

1089
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:44,840
Speaker 1: keep your head down better yet leave. And when we

1090
00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:48,280
Speaker 1: look at what's actually happening with this case, what Parker

1091
00:58:48,360 --> 00:58:52,480
Speaker 1: Maloy describes there is already happening. The investigation is not

1092
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 1: even concluded as of our recording this, but already the

1093
00:58:56,160 --> 00:58:59,440
Speaker 1: Oklahoma House of Representatives District ninety eight has honored Samantha

1094
00:58:59,440 --> 00:59:02,720
Speaker 1: Fullnecki with a citation of recognition. She's also doing a

1095
00:59:02,720 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 1: speaking engagement with Turning Points USA and was already on

1096
00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:09,520
Speaker 1: Fox News. So exactly what Parker Maloy describes, this is

1097
00:59:09,520 --> 00:59:17,320
Speaker 1: becoming an industry that essentially mints, telegenic, young, aggrieved right wingers.

1098
00:59:17,600 --> 00:59:20,880
Speaker 2: We're already seeing that machinery turn in front of our eyes.

1099
00:59:21,320 --> 00:59:23,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's big business. It gets a lot of clicks,

1100
00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:27,000
Speaker 3: it gets a lot of TV views. I wouldn't even

1101
00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:30,440
Speaker 3: begin to know all the ways that they're making money

1102
00:59:30,520 --> 00:59:31,960
Speaker 3: off of this, but they definitely are.

1103
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:34,120
Speaker 1: And we can't not mention that all of this is

1104
00:59:34,120 --> 00:59:37,240
Speaker 1: happening in Oklahoma, which has been, I guess, something of

1105
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:41,800
Speaker 1: a test ground for anti trans and transphobic policies in education.

1106
00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:44,760
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before, but Chaia Rachik, who runs

1107
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:47,120
Speaker 1: the libs of TikTok account, was given a role in

1108
00:59:47,120 --> 00:59:51,000
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma Department of Education's Library Media Advisory Committee, even

1109
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:53,480
Speaker 1: though she does not live in Oklahoma, has never lived

1110
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:55,800
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma, has no connection to the state, has no

1111
00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 1: background or credentials in education.

1112
00:59:57,760 --> 00:59:58,880
Speaker 2: She's actually a realtor.

1113
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:03,280
Speaker 1: She's just some one one who runs social media accounts

1114
01:00:03,280 --> 01:00:06,880
Speaker 1: and hates trans people and that's enough to be given

1115
01:00:06,920 --> 01:00:09,600
Speaker 1: a position within Oklahoma's public education.

1116
01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:14,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oklahoma, they've really If you remember a couple of

1117
01:00:14,640 --> 01:00:17,920
Speaker 3: years ago, there were a bunch of right when you

1118
01:00:18,040 --> 01:00:22,120
Speaker 3: was like running for and winning school boards, and I

1119
01:00:22,160 --> 01:00:24,200
Speaker 3: think a lot of that took place in Oklahoma too.

1120
01:00:24,240 --> 01:00:27,600
Speaker 3: So it's not just the university level, but even like

1121
01:00:27,720 --> 01:00:34,560
Speaker 3: K twelve, education has really had this very strong influence

1122
01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:44,120
Speaker 3: from these political Christian types who really, much like Samantha's essay,

1123
01:00:44,680 --> 01:00:50,120
Speaker 3: value vague moralizing that is in some way possibly connected

1124
01:00:50,120 --> 01:00:56,919
Speaker 3: to the Bible over evidence or facts like That's it's

1125
01:00:56,960 --> 01:01:00,800
Speaker 3: a whole approach to education that they have really been

1126
01:01:00,840 --> 01:01:05,000
Speaker 3: pushing in that state. Unfortunately for the children who live there.

1127
01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:07,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not going well because they're consistently ranked pretty

1128
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:11,240
Speaker 1: low in public education. So I don't think it's necessarily

1129
01:01:11,280 --> 01:01:14,080
Speaker 1: working for the people who are.

1130
01:01:13,880 --> 01:01:15,640
Speaker 2: Looking to be educated in the state.

1131
01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:18,840
Speaker 3: And working great for lives of TikTok Yeah.

1132
01:01:18,760 --> 01:01:19,800
Speaker 2: Really working good for them.

1133
01:01:20,840 --> 01:01:23,840
Speaker 1: And this is also where the governor, Kevin Stitt, has

1134
01:01:23,880 --> 01:01:27,160
Speaker 1: signed a slew of anti trans bills, things like banning

1135
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:30,680
Speaker 1: gender affirming care bills to keep trans kids out of sports,

1136
01:01:31,040 --> 01:01:34,840
Speaker 1: you know, bills barring trans kids from using bathrooms consistent

1137
01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:36,960
Speaker 1: to their gender identity, things like that. Right, So I

1138
01:01:36,960 --> 01:01:39,919
Speaker 1: don't think this is a coincidence. It's happening in Oklahoma

1139
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:43,680
Speaker 1: at all. And so the latest on this case is

1140
01:01:43,680 --> 01:01:46,600
Speaker 1: that the University of Oklahoma Graduate Student Senate passed and

1141
01:01:46,680 --> 01:01:50,520
Speaker 1: resolution calling on the university to provide more transparency regarding

1142
01:01:50,560 --> 01:01:54,360
Speaker 1: the administrative leave and additional protection for graduate teaching assistant

1143
01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:58,439
Speaker 1: in course investigations. During a meeting, the Graduate Student Senate said,

1144
01:01:58,840 --> 01:02:02,600
Speaker 1: if these accusations were upheld, external employers and academic institutions

1145
01:02:02,680 --> 01:02:06,200
Speaker 1: could reasonably conclude that OU grants grades and degrees without

1146
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:09,800
Speaker 1: requiring students to demonstrate genuine learning through coursework, exams, and

1147
01:02:09,880 --> 01:02:14,120
Speaker 1: honest evaluation. The resolution read upholding these claims would call

1148
01:02:14,160 --> 01:02:17,120
Speaker 1: into question the value and credibility of an OU degree,

1149
01:02:17,320 --> 01:02:21,680
Speaker 1: suggesting that academic outcomes can be influenced by unfounded accusations

1150
01:02:21,840 --> 01:02:25,120
Speaker 1: rather than merit. In making this appeal to the University administration,

1151
01:02:25,560 --> 01:02:28,640
Speaker 1: the Graduate Student Senate stands in solidarity with the Graduate

1152
01:02:28,640 --> 01:02:31,120
Speaker 1: Student instructor and will continue to advocate for their rights,

1153
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:33,400
Speaker 1: their safety, and their well being. The Ways and Means

1154
01:02:33,440 --> 01:02:36,280
Speaker 1: Committee chair Sam Jensen, who authored this bill, said that

1155
01:02:36,320 --> 01:02:38,720
Speaker 1: he is aware that this graduate student has received death

1156
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:42,160
Speaker 1: threats and harassment because of this situation. They say that

1157
01:02:42,200 --> 01:02:44,600
Speaker 1: we are asking the university to condemn that behavior and

1158
01:02:44,640 --> 01:02:47,720
Speaker 1: to step up their protections for the entire university community.

1159
01:02:48,000 --> 01:02:50,720
Speaker 1: The resolution is also calling on the university to disclose

1160
01:02:50,760 --> 01:02:54,200
Speaker 1: the procedures during the investigation and explain in detail why

1161
01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:57,400
Speaker 1: the instructor was placed on leave, and to formally apologize

1162
01:02:57,400 --> 01:03:01,200
Speaker 1: for the instructor for the bullying that they receive. And that, really,

1163
01:03:01,240 --> 01:03:05,680
Speaker 1: I think is a good point that how quickly this

1164
01:03:05,760 --> 01:03:08,000
Speaker 1: is somebody who had previously just won an award for

1165
01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:10,720
Speaker 1: how good of a teacher they were, how easily and

1166
01:03:10,760 --> 01:03:14,320
Speaker 1: how quickly the university just throws them away at the

1167
01:03:14,360 --> 01:03:18,600
Speaker 1: first blush of any kind of grievance that you know,

1168
01:03:19,000 --> 01:03:22,040
Speaker 1: might make them a right wing villain. And to me,

1169
01:03:22,120 --> 01:03:24,960
Speaker 1: it underscores the importance of things like a graduate student

1170
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:27,080
Speaker 1: union or a TA union, you know, so that you

1171
01:03:27,400 --> 01:03:31,520
Speaker 1: aren't just abandoned with no one to advocate for your protections.

1172
01:03:31,880 --> 01:03:35,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, nowhere in the summary of actions by the university

1173
01:03:35,440 --> 01:03:39,560
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like they have the instructors back, right, They

1174
01:03:39,680 --> 01:03:43,880
Speaker 3: just like first thing, put the instructor on leave, let

1175
01:03:43,920 --> 01:03:49,040
Speaker 3: the student know that they won't be penalized, effectively undercutting

1176
01:03:49,560 --> 01:03:52,960
Speaker 3: the grade that the instructor had given the students. And

1177
01:03:53,040 --> 01:03:56,800
Speaker 3: something that was mentioned in that resolution from their student Senate,

1178
01:03:56,880 --> 01:03:59,560
Speaker 3: which I think is a really important point, is that

1179
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:04,440
Speaker 3: there's there's no emphasis on learning here, Like the whole

1180
01:04:04,760 --> 01:04:08,960
Speaker 3: point of classes in university education is to learn. Is

1181
01:04:09,000 --> 01:04:15,800
Speaker 3: for students to learn stuff from their instructors, not to

1182
01:04:17,600 --> 01:04:22,960
Speaker 3: boldly proclaim their religious opinions and get rewarded for it.

1183
01:04:23,520 --> 01:04:28,200
Speaker 3: I feel like that really gets lost a lot when

1184
01:04:28,400 --> 01:04:30,720
Speaker 3: talking about these kinds of cases.

1185
01:04:31,520 --> 01:04:34,200
Speaker 1: Yes, I read this op ed in The Times called

1186
01:04:34,280 --> 01:04:37,000
Speaker 1: how one student's failing grade became a cause celebrat on

1187
01:04:37,040 --> 01:04:38,920
Speaker 1: the right that basically lays that out.

1188
01:04:38,960 --> 01:04:39,800
Speaker 2: Here's how they put it.

1189
01:04:40,280 --> 01:04:43,720
Speaker 1: Culture warriors like ful Necki and the Oklahoma conservative politicians

1190
01:04:43,720 --> 01:04:47,480
Speaker 1: supporting her are immediately taking advantage of a decade's long trend,

1191
01:04:47,520 --> 01:04:51,160
Speaker 1: and higher education students think they are customers who deserve

1192
01:04:51,240 --> 01:04:54,320
Speaker 1: to be catered to, rather than curious humans who might

1193
01:04:54,360 --> 01:04:57,280
Speaker 1: have something to learn. With the Trump administration going to

1194
01:04:57,280 --> 01:05:00,640
Speaker 1: war with universities and Oklahoma's Freedom Caucus, a group of

1195
01:05:00,720 --> 01:05:03,840
Speaker 1: right wing state legislators to crying oh used descent into

1196
01:05:03,920 --> 01:05:08,200
Speaker 1: radical activism and demanding a public apology to Samantha Polniki

1197
01:05:08,480 --> 01:05:11,080
Speaker 1: while threatening a funding cut. You can see how hard

1198
01:05:11,080 --> 01:05:13,680
Speaker 1: it is for even the most stalwart college presidents to

1199
01:05:13,720 --> 01:05:17,160
Speaker 1: stand up for the principles of academic freedom. Inside Higher

1200
01:05:17,320 --> 01:05:20,040
Speaker 1: Ed does an annual Student Voice survey that polls thousands

1201
01:05:20,080 --> 01:05:22,600
Speaker 1: of current college students from across the country, and this

1202
01:05:22,680 --> 01:05:26,480
Speaker 1: year's result showed that sixty five percent of college students

1203
01:05:26,680 --> 01:05:30,840
Speaker 1: consider themselves customers of their institution in some capacity, defined

1204
01:05:30,880 --> 01:05:33,560
Speaker 1: in the survey as expecting to have their needs met

1205
01:05:33,840 --> 01:05:37,320
Speaker 1: and be empathized with because they are paying tuitions and fees.

1206
01:05:37,760 --> 01:05:40,720
Speaker 1: So that is exactly what you're talking about, right, that

1207
01:05:41,560 --> 01:05:46,480
Speaker 1: this idea that you know, college is just a customer

1208
01:05:46,560 --> 01:05:49,880
Speaker 1: service experience where you pay tuition and you get a

1209
01:05:49,920 --> 01:05:53,360
Speaker 1: grade that you want, and not a place where there's

1210
01:05:53,400 --> 01:05:54,720
Speaker 1: an expectation.

1211
01:05:54,200 --> 01:05:56,960
Speaker 2: That you would do any actual learning and growing.

1212
01:05:57,000 --> 01:05:59,480
Speaker 1: And I think ultimately like that is the goal of

1213
01:05:59,520 --> 01:06:02,520
Speaker 1: people like Turning Points USA. They want to break trust

1214
01:06:02,560 --> 01:06:07,560
Speaker 1: in education, to make every classroom essentially a battlefield and every.

1215
01:06:07,280 --> 01:06:09,320
Speaker 2: Teacher potentially a villain.

1216
01:06:09,880 --> 01:06:12,200
Speaker 1: The real tragedy here is that it does not just

1217
01:06:12,280 --> 01:06:15,400
Speaker 1: hurt faculty, which it absolutely does, you know, especially faculty

1218
01:06:15,440 --> 01:06:17,640
Speaker 1: that doesn't have tenure. If you're an adjunct or a

1219
01:06:17,640 --> 01:06:19,840
Speaker 1: TA a lot, you might have a lot less productions,

1220
01:06:20,160 --> 01:06:23,400
Speaker 1: So it hurts those faculty, but it also hurt students.

1221
01:06:23,800 --> 01:06:26,600
Speaker 1: Like if we stop expecting students to be able to

1222
01:06:26,640 --> 01:06:29,720
Speaker 1: engage with evidence, to build arguments, to revise and challenge

1223
01:06:29,760 --> 01:06:32,600
Speaker 1: their thinking, what exactly is it that they're supposed to

1224
01:06:32,640 --> 01:06:35,360
Speaker 1: be doing in college? Like what are they paying tuition for?

1225
01:06:35,720 --> 01:06:38,320
Speaker 1: But I think that is really the point here, to

1226
01:06:38,360 --> 01:06:40,760
Speaker 1: devalue education to the point where it is just an

1227
01:06:40,760 --> 01:06:44,040
Speaker 1: exchange of money for grades, not a place where young

1228
01:06:44,080 --> 01:06:47,480
Speaker 1: people are expected to do any actual learning. Well, Mike,

1229
01:06:47,840 --> 01:06:49,960
Speaker 1: thank you for filming through this with me. Maybe I'll

1230
01:06:49,960 --> 01:06:50,880
Speaker 1: see you in the classroom.

1231
01:06:51,400 --> 01:06:53,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me here, Bridget it was fun

1232
01:06:53,320 --> 01:06:58,480
Speaker 3: to talk about teaching. And I hope that instructor is okay.

1233
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:01,920
Speaker 3: And I hope Samanth the at some point in the

1234
01:07:01,920 --> 01:07:04,960
Speaker 3: future looks back on this whole experience with deep shame

1235
01:07:05,000 --> 01:07:05,520
Speaker 3: and regret.

1236
01:07:09,840 --> 01:07:11,880
Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or

1237
01:07:11,960 --> 01:07:13,800
Speaker 1: just want to say hi? You can read us at

1238
01:07:13,840 --> 01:07:16,560
Speaker 1: Hello at Tegody dot com. You can also find transcripts

1239
01:07:16,560 --> 01:07:19,000
Speaker 1: for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No

1240
01:07:19,080 --> 01:07:21,160
Speaker 1: Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod.

1241
01:07:21,520 --> 01:07:24,960
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland

1242
01:07:25,000 --> 01:07:27,720
Speaker 1: is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and

1243
01:07:27,800 --> 01:07:31,560
Speaker 1: sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,

1244
01:07:31,560 --> 01:07:34,360
Speaker 1: Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate

1245
01:07:34,400 --> 01:07:35,040
Speaker 1: and review.

1246
01:07:34,800 --> 01:07:35,960
Speaker 4: Us on Apple Podcasts.

1247
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:39,439
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,

1248
01:07:39,480 --> 01:07:41,520
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.