Weeks after a University of Oklahoma student’s story about being flunked on a paper that touted her Christian faith caused a viral uproar, the teaching assistant behind the grade has been fired.

“Based on an examination of the graduate teaching assistant’s prior grading standards and patterns, as well as the graduate teaching assistant’s own statements related to this matter, it was determined that the graduate teaching assistant was arbitrary in the grading of this specific paper,” the state’s flagship school said in a Monday evening statement. “The graduate teaching assistant will no longer have instructional duties at the University.”

Samantha Fulnecky, a junior at the school, received zero out of 25 on an assignment in which she referenced the Bible after graduate teaching assistant William “Mel” Curth, who uses she/they pronouns, scored the paper.

The teaching assistant tasked Fulnecky and her classmates with writing a response to a scholarly article titled “Relations Among Gender Typicality, Peer Relations, and Mental Health During Early Adolescence,” which discusses results of a study about gender norms among middle schoolers and the social ramifications children may face for not conforming to gender norms.

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They were asked to provide a “thoughtful discussion of some aspect of the article.” The rubric for the assignment did not require students to provide empirical evidence in their responses.

The third-year student responded by saying that gender norms should be celebrated, not denigrated. She cited Genesis, the first book of the Bible, in which God created men and women equally, but with separate purposes.

“Gender roles and tendencies should not be considered ‘stereotypes,’” Fulnecky wrote in her essay. “Women naturally want to do womanly things because God created us with those womanly desires in our hearts. The same goes for men. God created men in the image of His courage and strength, and He created women in the image of His beauty. He intentionally created women differently than men and we should live our lives with that in mind.”

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She later described the societal push toward nonbinary gender identification as “demonic.”

Curth took exception to Fulnecky’s essay, and gave her a zero out of 25.

“Please note that I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs, but instead I am deducting point [sic] for you posting a reaction paper that does not answer the questions for this assignment, contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive,” Curth’s explanation for the grade said.

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Curth said the concept of only two sexes is not backed by science.

“You may personally disagree with this, but that doesn’t change the fact that every major psychological, medical, pediatric, and psychiatric association in the United States acknowledges that, biologically and psychologically, sex and gender is neither binary nor fixed,” Curth said.

The graduate teaching assistant also called Fulnecky’s essay “highly offensive.”

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“I definitely think that I was being punished for what I believe because I very clearly stated in my essay in my response to the article, I very clearly stated my beliefs and stated what — not just my beliefs — but what the Bible and what God says about gender and about those roles,” Fulnecky told Fox News Digital amid the uproar.

Curth was placed on administrative leave after the student filed a discrimination claim, as the university conducted an investigation.

In its statement announcing Curth’s firing, the university said the school’s provost, described as the “highest-ranking academic officer,” personally reviewed the incident before the decision to fire Curth was made.

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“Because this matter involves both student and faculty rights, the University has engaged in repeated and detailed conversations with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee to ensure there is an understanding of the facts, the process, and the actions being taken,” the statement said.

The school also noted that Fulnecky’s grade had been restored. 

“The University of Oklahoma believes strongly in both its faculty’s rights to teach with academic freedom and integrity and its students’ right to receive an education that is free from a lecturer’s impermissible evaluative standards. We are committed to teaching students how to think, not what to think. The University will continue to review best practices to ensure that its instructors have the comprehensive training necessary to objectively assess their students’ work without limiting their ability to teach, inspire, and elevate our next generation.”

Republican Sen. John Cornyn says that Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s campaign launch in Texas’ high-stakes 2026 Senate race is proof that “the Democratic Party has become the captive of the left wing.”

Cornyn, the longtime senator from Texas who’s facing arguably the toughest re-election of his political career, charged in a Fox News Digital interview that the bid by Crockett, a progressive champion and vocal critic and foil of President Donald Trump, shows that “even people like Chuck Schumer,” the top Democrat in the Senate, “have been hijacked by the Bernie Sanders and AOC wing of the Democratic Party.”

Crockett, a two-term lawmaker who represents a Dallas-area district, launched her bid earlier this month hours after former Rep. Colin Allred, a more moderate Democrat running a second straight time for the Senate in right-leaning Texas, ended his campaign.

Crockett will now face off in her party’s March 3 primary with state Rep. James Talarico, a former middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian who is also seen as a rising Democrat. The general election showdown in Texas is one of a handful of midterm races that may determine if the GOP holds its Senate majority.

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Cornyn embraces Crockett’s entry into the race.

“I think she is unelectable in a general election in Texas. Texas is still a conservative red state,” Cornyn claimed. “She can’t win, so I’m really happy she’s decided to run.”

While Crockett and Talarico face off for the Democratic nomination, Cornyn is battling Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt in a competitive and combustible Republican primary.

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And unlike the Democratic primary, where Crockett and Talarico are the only major candidates, the three-way Republican race may be headed towards a May runoff, which would be triggered if no candidate tops 50% in the March primary.

But Cornyn said that a GOP runoff won’t “really change our chances of winning in November.”

Cornyn is backed by Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) in the GOP primary.

NRSC chair Sen. Tim Scott predicts Cornyn will be the GOP’s nominee, emphasizing in a Fox News Digital interview last week that “we are confident that Texas will be red, ruby red, with John Cornyn as our candidate.”

Paxton, who has been battered over the past decade by a slew of scandals and legal problems and who is now dealing with a messy divorce, is a longtime MAGA champion and ally of Trump, who remains neutral in the Senate GOP primary race.

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Cornyn, highlighting his Trump credentials, noted that “I get along well with the President. I’ve supported him during his first term, and now in his second term, I think the figure we came up with was 99.3% of the time. So I want the president to be successful and look forward to continuing to support him and his policies.”

But he acknowledged that “I don’t think he’s [Trump] in a big hurry to endorse. He says that both the attorney general and I are friends of his, and I don’t think he wants to disappoint some of his friends who support one or the other of us, if he…goes to support one and not the other.”

The Republican primary in Texas has become explosive, with charges flying from all sides.

But Cornyn, remaining more diplomatic than incendiary, merely touted that he would be the most effective general election candidate. And he pointed to Paxton and Hunt and argued, “They’re probably not going to be able to win, certainly by the same margin, and they might not be able to win at all because they’re flawed candidates.”

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“I’ve been through a lot of races before. This is nothing new for me, and we look forward to a good primary on March the third and probably a runoff that will finish the race off in May, and then we’ll get ready for whoever the Democrats decide to nominate for November,” he added.

Paxton campaign spokesman Nick Maddux, pushing back against Cornyn, told Fox News Digital, “Everyone knows that Jasmine Crockett, who said Hispanic Trump voters have a ‘slave mentality,’ is going to lose the general election miserably after winning the Democratic nomination. Cornyn’s reciting this tired talking point about the general election because his sad campaign has nothing else to talk about it.”

“Ken Paxton won his last statewide general election by nearly double digits, despite tens of millions in negative spending against him, and he’ll do exactly that again in 2026,” Maddux predicted.

Cornyn, who is running for a fifth six-year term representing Texas in the Senate, announced his re-election campaign in early March, with Paxton launching his primary challenge a month later.

Hunt, a West Point graduate who flew Apache helicopters during his Army service and a rising MAGA star who is in his second term representing a solidly Republican district in the Houston-area, jumped into the race in October.

As he declared his candidacy, Hunt showcased his own Trump credentials, saying, “I was the first person in the nation to endorse President Trump, and I have remained steadfast in my commitment to the people of Texas.”

Hunt had been mulling a Senate run for months and sources confirmed to Fox News earlier this year that the congressman made his case to Trump’s political team that he’s the only person who could win both a GOP primary and a general election.

Asked about Hunt, Cornyn claimed that “he can’t win the primary. He can force a runoff.”

And Cornyn said Hunt was “pretty headstrong and is determined to run, which is his right… but he also has a right to lose, which is what’s going to happen.”

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The 44-year-old Hunt, responding to the 73-year-old senator’s comments, told Fox News Digital that “Cornyn continues to lose support and now stands as the most vulnerable and ineffective incumbent in the country.”

“He refuses to step aside and pass the torch to a new generation of leadership, one aligned with the America First movement and committed to codifying President Trump’s agenda, something Cornyn has spent years opposing in the United States Senate,” Hunt charged.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, denied believing that Hispanic Trump voters had a “slave mentality” when asked about her past claims on Tuesday.

CNN’s Jake Tapper reminded the Texas Senate candidate of comments she made to Vanity Fair in 2024, when she compared Latinos who voted for President Donald Trump to slaves who would “hate” themselves.

“It almost reminds me of what people would talk about when they would talk about kind of like ‘slave mentality’ and the hate that some slaves would have for themselves,” she said. 

“It’s almost like a slave mentality that they have. It is wild to me when I hear how anti-immigrant they are as immigrants, many of them. I’m talking about people that literally just got here and can barely vote that are having this kind of attitude.”

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Tapper asked if all Hispanic Trump voters still have a “slave mentality.”

“No, and that‘s not what that said at all, to be clear,” Crockett said. “It did not say that every Latino has that type of mentality.”

“No, no, but the ones that vote for people that believe in strong or Trump‘s immigration policy,” Tapper clarified.

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“So, I don‘t believe that the people that voted for Trump believe in what they‘re actually getting. That is No. 1. What Trump said is that he was going to kick out the bad guys. And that‘s what I was talking about,” Crockett said.

Crockett reiterated that she didn’t “understand what’s happening” with Latinos who insisted that there were people who entered the country “the wrong way.”

“At the same time, I knew what Trump meant because Trump had a record. Trump had a record of locking up kids and putting them in cages. So, I knew what Trump meant. And, so, that‘s why it wasn‘t making sense to me,” Crockett said.

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Fox News Digital reached out to Crockett and her campaign for comment.

In the Vanity Fair interview, Crockett also disparaged White women, claiming they “retreated” and failed Democratic candidates.

“I said I don’t trust White women. I said I’m just telling you, and I think you need to have conversations with your sisters because they are the group that failed Hillary Clinton. I mean, when you go back and look at the numbers, White women were the ones that failed her. And, so, in my mind, if they failed Hillary, I don’t know that I can believe that they won’t fail Kamala,” Crockett said.

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She also accused Black men of “flaking” on former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Crockett is trying to become the first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate race in Texas since 1988. Trump carried the state easily in 2024 over Harris as he made major gains with Latino voters, and no Democratic White House candidate has won Texas since 1976.