It’s not often that an “F” on an essay draws national headlines. But I guess that’s this week’s fixation.
A student at the University of Oklahoma (OU) recently received such a failing grade on an essay in a psychology class. The essay didn’t respond to the prompt, didn’t cite empirical evidence, declared the idea that there are more than two genders “demonic,” and had its grade confirmed by another instructor for the course. But the student accused the graduate instructor who graded their essay of discriminating against them because their essay was rooted in their belief — tenuously justified by Christian faith — that there are only two genders and that traditional gender roles are actually beneficial.
Instead of going to office hours, discussing the bad grade, and moving on with their life, this student shared their essay and their instructor’s detailed feedback with OU’s chapter of Turning Point USA, a right-wing national organization with chapters at several college campuses. The group posted the essay online, along with the TA’s feedback, boosting the student’s claim that they were discriminated against because of their Christian beliefs.
When students assume that grading is ideologically motivated and in bad faith — and when they choose to take these concerns straight to reactionary publications that have it out for higher education instead of engaging in productive dialogue with the members of the University community — our ability to have academically fulfilling conversations begins to slip away. This ideological assault on higher education erodes the fundamental contract we enter when we attend a university: that we are completing assignments in good faith, that professors will grade our assignments in good faith, and we’ll use our professors’ feedback to improve our work.
After the Turning Point post went viral on X, a right-wing media firestorm ensued. The story has been picked up by Fox News, the New York Post, and various other right-wing publications — even though the student’s essay has been widely recognized as pretty terrible. The articles characterize the incident as one of “anti-Christian bias,” a violation of “free-speech rights,” or explain that the student was flunked for “citing [the] Bible” in lieu of empirical evidence.
The instructor who graded the essay has been harassed based on their identity and doxxed in the days since.
The far-right’s obsession with higher education is, at times, stifling. At Princeton, professors have been targeted because of the course material that they teach or the departments with which they are affiliated. Princeton has, for the most part, responded to these attacks by defending their professors and the principles of academic freedom.
But we’re not fully insulated — students here, too, are trying to catch the University off guard. For instance, this fall, a student leaked secret recordings and documents from a diversity, equity, and inclusion training for residential college advisors (RCAs) to the National Review, a right-wing publication. This behavior violates the unwritten agreement of participation in University life. People are allowed to say what they want to say. But calling on a powerful, motivated outside actor to stir up controversy on a college campus damages its good-faith, truth-seeking mission.
The repercussions have been even more extreme at other schools. OU caved to right-wing pressure and put the instructor who graded the student’s essay on leave. At Texas A&M University, a professor was fired after internet backlash surrounding a lecture about gender in children’s literature stemming from a video recorded secretly by a student. But this capitulation only incentivizes the very divisive tactics that put these institutions in the spotlight in the first place.
When students deploy incendiary tactics in the classroom, everybody loses. Recording a professor’s lecture to send to Project Veritas or Campus Reform or posting essay feedback online to make unfounded accusations of ideological bias gravely shifts classroom dynamics. Perhaps professors cut a lecture from a course syllabus because they don’t want their words to be taken out of context and posted online, or they avoid assignments on topics of political relevance.
Ultimately, what will happen is that professors and students will be more skittish in the classroom — less willing to take intellectual risks or introduce unorthodox ideas into discussion. But this strikes at the heart of a liberal arts education: There is no academic progress or advancement when nobody feels like they can introduce new ideas into discourse.
While it has not been publicly acknowledged, it is clear that secretive videotapes of courses scare the University. Princeton’s new recording policy, which passed through the Council of the Princeton University Community last month, is the full manifestation of its fears. The policy goes too far, is vaguely worded, and there are still questions around how exactly it might be implemented, but the policy shows that the University is serious about addressing the problem.
But it won’t protect Princeton — and no policy can. Texas A&M has a similar policy barring lecture recording that did not stop a professor from getting caught in media crossfire. And no “recording policy” would not even begin to cover the way that instructor feedback was weaponized at OU.
That means that it is up to us, as students, to build an environment that values academic freedom and spurns demagogic attempts to discredit our professors in bad faith.
Charlie Yale is an assistant Opinion editor from Omaha, Neb. He can be reached at cyale[at]princeton.edu.
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