University of Oklahoma officials suspended graduate teaching assistant Mel Curth from teaching on Sunday after a student, Samantha Fulnecky, complained about getting a failing grade on an assignment. The incident has sparked a lot of debate about whether Fulnecky’s essay, which repeatedly invoked the Bible and denounced transgender people (including, reportedly, her instructor) as “demonic,” deserved a poor grade for its lack of academic rigor or if Fulnecky was unjustly punished for her religiously motivated political opinions.
However, this debate about grading obscures the far more important question at hand about academic freedom: Should instructors be suspended from their classes without due process and proof of misconduct?
The answer is clear, and everyone—liberal or conservative, anti-trans or pro–trans rights—should agree with this basic concept: No instructor should be suspended from teaching without being found guilty of misconduct. This is a fundamental tenet of justice: innocent until proven guilty.
Banning an instructor from the classroom is one of the most serious violations of academic freedom because it so clearly abridges the freedom to teach. It prohibits a teacher entirely from expressing their ideas in the classroom. It deprives students of the opportunity to hear from their teacher. And it sends a chilling message to the entire campus that expressing the wrong ideas can be punished without due process. Instructors should only be removed from classes when they are committing irreparable harm to students—for example, by physically endangering them, or by refusing to teach their classes. But there is no irreparable harm in a grade dispute, because grade appeals allow students to receive a just result. Grading disputes do not justify emergency action.
Let us consider the worst-case scenario here: The instructor gave a lousy grade to a student who called them (and all trans people) “demonic.” It might be deserving of a grade appeal and measures taken to protect the student from unfair grading. However, we have no evidence of any general misconduct or bias in grading. We have one public complaint from a particularly obnoxious student and no other allegations of any wrongdoing.
An instructor who gives a wrong grade on an assignment to one incredibly offensive student may have fallen short of our ideals for a teacher. But even if this allegation was thoroughly investigated and definitely proven, it would not by itself justify removing an instructor from teaching as a punishment. It certainly cannot justify an interim suspension without proof of misconduct.
Imagine if a Christian student with a Jewish instructor had referred to Jews as a “demonic” force. Would we be so quick to denounce the teacher who objected to such vile hatred and regarded it as unworthy of academic work? It’s only the hatred of trans people that sparks a very different reaction today. But even if the instructor’s response was understandable, it still could be wrong. Still, the determination by a body of faculty experts about whether it was wrong has not yet been determined, and until it is, a suspension is unjustified.
Incredibly, this violation of basic rights by the University of Oklahoma was denounced by conservatives as inadequate. State Sen. Shane Jett (R-Shawnee), chair of the Oklahoma Freedom Caucus, declared, “Placing the instructor on leave is not sufficient. It’s another weak and cowardly response.” The Freedom Caucus called for “cuts to state funding for higher education institutions until free speech and religious liberty are verifiably protected so conservatives are no longer targeted.”
The conservatives clamoring for blood in Oklahoma should question whether they really want to endorse the idea of administrators suspending any professor accused of saying or doing something that upsets a student.
As I have long argued, interim suspensions violate academic freedom by suppressing speech without proof of misconduct. It’s time for people on all sides in all cases to condemn interim suspensions on a universal, consistent and principled basis.
If the Oklahoma TA is found to be guilty of violating academic standards after a fair hearing, and if the determination of academic experts is that she made a terrible mistake and is incapable of learning from it, then a suspension from teaching could be justified. But academic freedom requires due process, and we fundamentally betray it when we punish people before finding them guilty of misconduct.