WTW107: Hello Mr. President I Got a Bad Grade Can You Fix It Pwease

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: What's so scary about the woke mob? How often you just don't see them coming. Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed. Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down. The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything.

0:00:33 Clip: Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:42 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 107. I'm Thomas. That's Lydia. How are you doing?

0:00:48 Lydia: Hello, I am doing pretty well. I think I'm on the other end of the sickness that we've all had in this house, I think. I don't sound like it, but I think I'm finally getting better.

0:00:57 Thomas: Well, we're doing this intro a little out of time, so I wasn't doing banter.

0:01:03 Lydia: Oh, yes. Okay, sorry. I'll see myself out.

0:01:03 Thomas: This is a strict no banter zone. Stop with your topical banter in this new regime, though. If anyone doesn't like our podcast, we can just cry racism against our religion. Yeah. You just don't like that. I love our savior, Jesus Christ. I'm going to start every episode with that. This episode goes out to our Lord and savior, Christ and God who made us the podcasters we are and wouldn't, you can't change us because

0:01:16 Lydia: I I think so. I think that's, this is precedence. Yep, exactly.

0:01:32 Thomas: That would be going against God. My prayer for the world is that you like, and subscribe and rate our podcast five stars.

0:01:39 Lydia: I agree with that.

0:01:41 Thomas: Well, it's part two with this Christian idiot and her stupid paper. Who's again, not just an idiot is as a bad actor here, as somebody who I think is doing this on purpose. We're going to be back on with Eli to talk more about that. This is going to start with the school's reaction and that side of things. And we're going tell you where this all has gone. So that's what's in store. We'll take a little break. Please support the show, patreon .com slash where there's woke. You know, if this whole thing with my scheme, with my sincerely held religious belief podcast thing doesn't pan out, we're gonna need people to also subscribe on Patreon. Make the show happen and and skip the ad.

0:02:18 Thomas: So patreon .com slash where there's woke. All right, after this, we'll be back on with Eli.

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0:02:26 Lydia: So Oklahoma University catches wind of this, I guess, via media because she jumped above them. Yeah. And they put out a statement that is incredibly disappointing.

0:02:32 Thomas: Well, the fucking governor, I guess. I don't know.

0:02:39 Lydia: The University of Oklahoma takes seriously concerns involving First Amendment rights, certainly including religious freedoms. Upon receiving notice from the student on the grading of an assignment, the university immediately began a full review of the situation and has acted swiftly to address the matter. First, the college acted immediately to address the academic issue raised by the student. College leaders contacted her on the day her letter was received and have maintained regular communication throughout the process. As previously stated, a formal grade appeals process was conducted. The process resulted in steps to ensure no academic harm to the student from the graded assignments. Second, the student reported filing a claim of illegal discrimination based on religious beliefs to the appropriate university office. OU has a clear process for reviewing such claims and it has been activated. The graduate student instructor has been placed on administrative leave pending the finalization of this process. To ensure fairness in the process, a full -time professor is serving as the course instructor for the remainder of the semester. OU remains firmly committed to fairness, respect, and protecting every student's right to express sincerely held religious beliefs.

0:03:40 Eli: You know it's the chair of the psych department and he's gonna, oh, you're gonna have the worst rest of the semester you've ever fucking had. There's nobody but the chair taking that job. He fucking found that grad student, loved their work. They had dinner three or four times. No, you should come on. We're really, honestly, we're building something great here. And he's going to walk in on Monday and be like, so here's what respond means.

0:04:06 Eli: We are going to go over it one by one. What's your name? Frank? Hi, I'm the chair of the psych department here's

0:04:10 Thomas: I wish. I Don't have that much faith in our society. God damn. I hope you're right though. You know better than I would on this.

0:04:17 Eli: The thing I know academia and I know academic snake language and I do want to give people some hope because what's happening to this person is really awful they are waiting for this to blow over and then there will be absolutely no consequences and in two years they will offer her an adjunct position to apologize for throwing her under the bus this

0:04:35 Thomas: God, you think so? I don' This is Oklahoma. God, I hope You're right.

0:04:41 Lydia: She even stays there,

0:04:37 Eli: Way one million percent oh yeah they they might have to leave right because of the constant harassment and abuse that they've faced since this coming out but I have seen a variety as of you here on where there's woke of fucking controversial teacher moments and this is just them saying we're taking this seriously we super best friend promise everyone behind closed doors like these fucking people ask chat gpt to write something that they'll

0:04:43 Lydia: I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yep.

0:05:11 Thomas: That's important. This is the effect of the horrendous attacks on free speech and academic freedom and all that by the Trump administration. This is the kind of thing that it does. It's something that I think we all need to appreciate more is we can have these rights and these whatever you want to call them, these kind of principles written down somewhere that we have these certain freedoms. But if there's enough of a threat, people will start to self -censor. This is OU, this is the school, which I'm not, again, I doubt they're like super amazing, but if this was four years ago, this wouldn't have happened. Right. Don't you think? I mean, this is a result of the battles with like Harvard and the funding that they've denied all, all this stuff that the Trump administration has done, even though it's all illegal, even though they don't get away with most of it. Like when all of a sudden down the courts smack down most of It doesn't matter because there's such a climate of fear and intimidation.

0:06:06 Eli: Like no there's a chilling effect fact yeah absolutely

0:06:08 Thomas: Yeah. And it's just sickening. It's it's fucking the reason that I cannot not under, I can't handle how fucking stupid these organizations like fire and other people who are talking about under, you know, Biden and Obama that like the, the horrendous, you know, free speech problems on our campuses, the bullshit that we cover on the show all the time. This is why I'm so mad about it all the time, and you know what those people are doing now, what they're saying? They're like, well, if the liberals hadn't, if The Progressive Kids hadn't started this, then we wouldn't even be here.

0:06:39 Lydia: Mm -hum.

0:06:39 Thomas: We wouldn't have all these. It's like, no, that was nothing. This is a genuine authoritarianism. And if an actual threat to free speech by the fucking government, the strong fucking arm of the government of our country coming down and dictating crap like this. Counterpoint.

0:06:43 Eli: Yeah counterpoint counterpoint why hasn't this graduate student condemned tamas I mean you you heard the response just toss in october 7th was bad feels feels like she's kind yeah it feels like he's kind of apologizing for something mom donnie hasn't commented at all on the assignment I don't know I'm just asking like what's going

0:07:10 Lydia: It's part of your email signature. Yeah. Yeah. The

0:07:26 Eli: On I'm trying to stop anti -semitism

0:07:30 Lydia: Oklahoma state legislature is obviously involved in this and calling for ou to be defunded if they don't let this grad student go completely I guess

0:07:41 Eli: If they don't kill this grad student in front of the student population they

0:07:43 Thomas: Publicly executor

0:07:43 Lydia: And it's crazy too because like when we've talked about similar situations in the past we are talking about professors like in the wake of charlie kirk and you know the free speech attacks on professors or or various staff members there, they, you know, have more protections than grad students do. This is an instructor that is a grad student. They don't have a union. They don'T have any money, second of all, to fight back on anything.

0:08:09 Thomas: It's asymmetrical

0:08:11 Eli: Got cliff bars in that break room they get that very special cliff bars throw them in

0:08:16 Thomas: They get paid nothing hopefully

0:08:16 Eli: There pizza party sometimes yeah oh

0:08:18 Lydia: Yeah. And asymmetric is the right word there, Thomas. Thank you for that. It feels just just incredibly scary and dangerous. And and honestly, you know, I had seen things about people who were getting you know they got their degrees from Oklahoma University and they're like I don't think this means anything anymore or like I'm transferring because I don' t want to be associated with the school anymore. I feel like if this is going to be just treated like like this is actually good like this was deserving of more than zero points. I don''t take this school seriously anymore and I don ''t think anyone else will take the school seriously. So I just don'' want to be affiliated with it anymore. I talked to my sister and she was like, yeah, I have a feeling that a lot of people who are, you know, finishing up grad work are not going to be applying to teach there because they see like how a grad student is being treated. Yeah, I hope so.

0:09:08 Thomas: What

0:09:04 Eli: I would submit this for every assignment in every class for the rest of the year this exact essay I would copy and paste samantha fulnecki's exact essay and yeah and in my literature class in my fuck I absolutely every class I would just submit this yeah

0:09:17 Thomas: Oh like if you were a student there oh yeah yeah yeah that's actually you know that's actually a good idea in a weird way that could be the student

0:09:29 Lydia: That's the protest. Yeah. Yeah that's interesting.

0:09:29 Thomas: Protest yeah man well we should We should definitely talk about the protest because there has been a reaction.

0:09:37 Lydia: First of all, there was a reaction from an an unlikely source, the chairman of Oklahoma Federation of College Republicans, this guy, Connor Tranquil. And he had, yeah, his response I thought was great. The academic, I mean, for the most part, he still gets in some of those Republican talking points. So, you know, yeah. The academic quality of the essay written by Samantha Filnecki is indefensible and the professor's failing grade is demonstrably correct.

0:09:48 Thomas: Connor Tranquil. Wow.

0:09:56 Eli: Still uses the name of the current reigning fascist party in the united states so he probably

0:10:07 Lydia: For TPUSA's OU chapter to elevate this poorly written paper suggests a serious lapse in judgment. The essay not only fails to meet basic college requirements, such as citing its primary source, the Bible, but fundamentally misses the assignment's objective. This episode is a characteristic political misstep that risks harming the credibility of conservative student organizations. The lesson is paramount. Focus on academic excellence, utilize scholarly sources, and meet the professor's demands. We should be engaging in substantive intellectual battles, not generating outrage over an earned poor grade. We are not the party of participation trophies.

0:10:41 Thomas: What I was going to fucking say.

0:10:42 Lydia: Do the work and earn the grade or fail on the merits. Wouldn't you know it? He had to delete it. So that response is gone now. But it was good while it lasted. Talk about viewpoint diversity.

0:10:52 Eli: Hey everybody um I've learned recently that my fellow leopards are in fact interested in eating meeting faces um god I'm shocked I thought really we put the mla formatting first and foremost god what how much my party has changed in only all the ways I could have noticed for the last decade fuck off I'm one of the good ones fuck

0:11:17 Thomas: First up. First up, I

0:11:17 Eli: You you know what you get to be on the end of the wall so you sort of hear the bangs before everybody else falls down get the fuck out of here

0:11:24 Thomas: Am so bad at this kind of school crap. With the sign. Did he mean, I just, I'm just curious for my own edification here. Did he mean like she didn't cite the Bibles and do the citation -y thing?

0:11:37 Lydia: Yes. Yes. Yeah.

0:11:36 Eli: Yeah she literally didn't do like the mla at the end of the paper fucking the bible the dash the

0:11:38 Thomas: All you would have had to do. Oh my God. Which is really funny because like that's still stupid, but it's still better. Like even not doing that. I think that is an important point. Like she She didn't even do that.

0:11:52 Lydia: Yeah, I will say, so I landed on this weird like document repository thing of like people uploading various things related to this specific class, the Lifespan Development class at Oklahoma University. So I read a couple other reaction papers from previous years to this article specifically that are tied to this class. And they are truly reaction papers, right? They're not necessarily, they're not disputing the work that was done in that article by raising other scholarly articles as a defense or anything like that. So I didn't see citations in any of the other things that I saw there, which is fine because again, as a reaction paper, the point is to be engaging with that material. However, I do think if you are going to push back against particular claims in that that article. You can't just say because I think so, because I feel it. I think that that is a reasonable position to take. I thought about this a lot.

0:12:13 Eli: Bible their prayer for the world and the united states specifically because in hebrew the word means equal helper your

0:12:53 Lydia: I felt like initially based on seeing the rubric that saying, well, she didn't even like use proper citations felt like that wasn't really necessary. But I do think if she's going to take that strong of a position quote against the article, again, she's not even engaging with the article truly and whatever it said, then yes, Yes, I am kind of back on the, you should have properly cited it then.

0:13:15 Thomas: Guess I want to make sure I get this straight. What is a reaction? I know we already covered that, but like, so I just want to make sure. I don't have that wrong. Like, what are the kind of the other papers that aren't shit?

0:13:28 Lydia: So here were the possible approaches that the instructor had laid out in the assignment rubric. A discussion of why you feel the topic is important and worthy of study or not. An application of the study or results to your own experiences. An applicationof the studyor results to observations about other behaviors. Linking the objectives or findings from the assigned article to other domains of development or other findings that we read about or discuss in class.

0:13:51 Thomas: Hmm. You're pretty. Yeah.

0:13:52 Eli: Prayer forthe nation and the world specifically

0:13:55 Lydia: A suggestion for further studies or experiments that might help researchers better understand the topic being studied,

0:14:00 Eli: She did that she suggested that we read the bible oh

0:14:03 Thomas: Read the Bible more. Yeah.

0:14:03 Lydia: Alternate interpretations of the researchers' findings.

0:14:09 Thomas: Not really, though. Yeah.

0:14:09 Lydia: No, not of their findings, no.

0:14:07 Eli: She did that she did do that she was no because she went into a psychotic fugue state which is an alternate

0:14:15 Lydia: A discussion of how development in this domain might proceed differently at other developmental stages, or your own thoughts about how development proceeds in the domain being researched in the article. So those were some ideas. And if you like you engage with scholarly articles, you know that there's some really easy stuff at the end anyway, because they do a discussion too. They talk about potentials for future research. You could have just grabbed that and piggybacked off of it.

0:14:41 Lydia: You're like, I really like their idea about pursuing this and blah, Blah, blah, blah.

0:14:45 Eli: Sorry lindy I hate to correct you here but if you actually look down at the bottom of that list uh it says or take six hits of salvia and just write down whatever comes out of your fucking nightmare skull I have something very important that I want to propose a scientific theory of my own that I call bad last name in patriarchy theory. So hear me out. Riley Gaines, Samantha Fulnecki. Here's what happens. Young women, they grow up and I'm saying second grade, first grade, something like that. They realize they have a terrible last name that they will be made fun of for the rest of their life about, right? It's like, should they're in second grade and it's like Fulnecki is your neck full enough, right. And they're like, Oh God, I hate that I have this name. What am I going to do? And their mom looks at them and they says, honey, don't worry. Someday the patriarchy will marry you to a man who will change your name. And in that moment, they fall in love with the patriarchie because the patriachie is going to take away their number one enemy, their terrible, terrible last name. That's what I'm saying, everybody.

0:15:07 Lydia: Interesting. Well, my mom never said that to me. And I was made fun of for my maiden name a lot, Miriam Pig. Yeah, P -I -G -G.

0:16:02 Eli: What was your maiden name? Sorry, your last name was was pig your mom knew smith

0:16:08 Lydia: That's my dad's last name. And I had a hyphenated last name and I was made fun OF a lot. I was MADE FUN OF so much.

0:16:16 Thomas: Her mom was not going to take that name. Yeah, you shouldn't do that to a girl, to be honest.

0:16:21 Lydia: I ended Anyway, so, yeah.

0:16:24 Eli: Rules you couldn't wait to marry oh that first date when he was like a smith actually you were like oh we're in we're fucking in hey if you'd like to not be named pig anymore um I've got I've Got Truly the Vanilla Ice Cream of Names and you can just hop right on

0:16:25 Thomas: Yeah, Smith is just blank, blank slate. Yeah, that's that's all. That's all I offered, pretty much. Marry me yeah well there there is a lot there's a lot more to talk about because there's the whole second level of response and the protest and then the additional thing that happened but there was something else in that response that I was trying to get to

0:16:45 Eli: Board of

0:17:01 Lydia: Participation trophies. Did you want to talk about that?

0:17:02 Thomas: Oh thank you yeah that was I've been waiting to yell about this for a while do I am old enough to remember eli I'm sure you remember this same exact fucking stupid ass video that you were probably sent or posted or whatever all through the years 2012 to like now where there's a video where they're like hey in college now all you have to do is if you're oppressed enough you get good grades if you did there's that stupid fucking not funny skit they did where somebody you know the video I'm talking about right where theyre like well they uh they have an opinion it's wrong and they raise their hand in class and they say it but that's the white kid so they're wrong and then the other person in in the wheelchair, who's black or whatever, you know, like all, all their, the, what they think are the oppression Olympics bullshit. That person gets to say whatever they want and they get a good grade. And this, this was like, genuinely, I'm old enough to fucking remember when that was the discourse. That was the whole thing. Like the, the lefties, the progressives, the woke, the back then it

0:17:26 Eli: Course yeah of course

0:18:00 Thomas: Would be the social justice warriors. They're all favor of just the school's meaningless because they could just get an A as long as you say you're oppressed enough. If you have the most axis of oppression. They just give you an A. This is exactly fucking that. It's exactly that. It's just, if you can cry Christian enough, you just get an A, you get to complain to mommy or daddy, the governor of the fucking state.

0:18:23 Thomas: And then they'll go straighten it out with the teacher, the big, evil, mean teacher who made you try to do some actual work. They'll just go get that taken care of. And you won't, you won'T have a bad grade for your fucking dog shit, nothing paper paper that you wrote. It's sickening. Every single accusation is a confession every time, forever. It is always true. The bullshit they accused us of is just what they're going to do.

0:18:48 Lydia: That's 100 % true. It's honestly depressing that, like, it's been so long. And, like I feel like there's so many people that just don't see that still. And it's obvious. Obvious.

0:19:00 Thomas: Eli, do you remember the video I'm talking about? So stupid. No, it wasn't that. I think there's that one too, but there's another one that was like nobody's. Yeah. And it's just like that that got spread around so

0:19:01 Eli: Oh of course absolutely with adam carolla of course oh you're talking about the comedy sketch one yeah oh of course I

0:19:13 Thomas: Much. God, assholes. So yeah.

0:19:14 Lydia: Fallout. So we can talk about kind of Fallout, what happened. Initially, let me just, I need to plop this in here because I think this is important and speaks to another reason why this was incredibly just calculated, right? Christy Fulnecki, who we mentioned a little bit, is, that's the mom. That's Samantha Fulnecki's mom. She is a lawyer based out of Missouri.

0:19:37 Eli: Love the air quotes in your voice just there lydia

0:19:41 Lydia: Yeah. She represented a January 6th defendant.

0:19:44 Thomas: Oh, for fuck's sake.

0:19:45 Lydia: She's represented folks that were opposed to masks in like the most the strangest way I like went down this whole deep dive of the nonsense that this lady's been up to she ended up like resigning from city council because I don't know there was like a whole petition to like remove her she has been very engaged in the discourse around her daughter and very pro her daughter of course

0:20:02 Thomas: Jesus. Well, very anti -trans people.

0:20:10 Lydia: But she is like very anti -trans people so she has responded to things where you know people have put out on x or whatever about these people are are mentally ill and should not be teaching our students. And she'll retweet it. She'll repost it and say, yes, absolutely. I'm so proud of my daughter for standing up against this. And it's like, it's so clear what is happening here. Just this piece from Parker Molloy, what Fulnecki's mother is saying out loud that trans people shouldn't be allowed to teach at all is what this movement actually wants. The individual controversies are just vehicles to get there. Each one is designed to make an example of a trans person, to signal to every other trans person in education or healthcare or any public facing role, this could happen to you. Keep your head down. Better yet, leave. That's 100 % what is happening here. And she's just making it like super clear and super obvious if you'll just look. But unfortunately, the Oklahoma University investigation regarding the grade is complete.

0:21:11 Thomas: That's what I was going to ask because I didn't understand from the wording there. It sounded like they said both things. They said both that, well, we're going to do an investigation, but also they're like, well we did an investigation and their, their, uh, their grades not going to drop.

0:21:27 Lydia: There's two elements.

0:21:27 Thomas: So like, is it normal to just fucking shit can of tea, or I guess suspend a teacher just from the mere accusation that a grade was wrong? What? That's normal. So, so, so a student just says, Hey, uh, they are a fucking bigots against me for my grades. And then they have to disrupt the class by saying, you don't get to teach it anymore. We have to find somebody else immediately before there's even an investigation. That can't be normal. I'm sorry.

0:21:36 Eli: Absolutely oh 100 oh

0:21:40 Lydia: Yeah, Yeah, I

0:21:59 Eli: 100

0:22:00 Lydia: Think it has happened a lot, actually. And there's there's been some discussion. I saw like a blog post on Inside Higher Ed talking about like, this is a big problem, regardless of what side you're on. And we should be reevaluating how we want to tackle this. If like if no students are in harm's way kind of thing, then that should be sort of the last resort.

0:22:01 Eli: Yeah it happens all the time

0:22:18 Thomas: What the fuck? I've never heard of this.

0:22:18 Lydia: But it is it does happen. Yeah.

0:22:21 Eli: Oh it's huge huge in academia it's like a meme

0:22:25 Thomas: Really? Are you just making this up? Because I don't know when you're just making something up.

0:22:27 Eli: Yeah well lydia is also making it up if I'm making it up no it's huge

0:22:33 Thomas: Yeah, she sometimes makes stuff up. So I don'T know.

0:22:36 Lydia: But there's two elements here. So I think if if it were just the grade and she was going through this grade appeal process, though, who knows, because there's been so much media scrutiny on this. I don't know that the instructor would have been placed on administrative leave during the grade appeal proces, but it's this religious discrimination claim that they're also investigating as a secondary thing. So that's not done yet. The grade is done.

0:23:00 Thomas: Wouldn't every single fucking professor or teacher be suspended all the time? There's no way that this could be how the system works. The mere accusation of, oh, I didn't deserve my grade means disrupting the class to the point of suspending the instructor? That can't be right.

0:23:16 Lydia: Well, that's what I'm saying. If it were just the grade. I don't know that would have happened yeah

0:23:20 Thomas: So you're saying it has to be the like viewpoint discrimination thing.

0:23:21 Eli: Yeah it's a discrimination claim yeah it it's it's a huge deal yeah no I I know multiple members of my teaching cohort who were hit with bogus claims of of of a variety of

0:23:24 Thomas: Okay. I guess that's slightly more plausible.

0:23:34 Eli: Things my favorite is uh one of my colleagues one of my old bosses the student thought if you turn in your work I can change your grade was a quid pro quo because they just like hadn't looked up what it meant so they went to the student center and they were like I think I've been offered a quid pro quo and and rightly before they looked into anything they were Like oh my god absolutely let's put this teacher on leave and do the investigation yeah absolutely and this was a like someone relatively high up in the department at the

0:23:53 Lydia: My god on

0:24:07 Thomas: Well, that's a bad way to do things. I'll just go ahead and say,

0:24:09 Lydia: The the grade side of things that's complete oklahoma university is not going to incorporate that assignment in her final grade so it's just absent from that the essay and a related assignment I'm thinking it must be the discussion post

0:24:25 Thomas: Oh, so we do. So, you do think it might be another assignment then? Okay. That's interesting.

0:24:27 Lydia: I think there's something else that's happening there would would have counted toward 3 % of her final grade in the course, but those grades would now be excluded.

0:24:35 Thomas: Fine.

0:24:36 Lydia: Also, elsewhere, I'd read that she had a 97 % in the class. Like, you would have been fine. Yeah. Because her reaction papers were probably perfectly reasonable. You know, she hasn't had her final yet, I guess. But she can engage with things appropriately until she sees that scary were gender.

0:24:40 Thomas: She did? How? Yes.

0:24:54 Eli: Time oh god that professor

0:24:54 Lydia: And then she sees it as her opportunity.

0:24:58 Eli: That professor hey if you're listening and I know you are the professor who's forced to take over this class I know You're the chair of the department I know know how much attention is on you the final is just gender sex sex gender transgender sex gender

0:25:13 Lydia: But I have been heartened. There was a big protest of hundreds of students walking out. I had mentioned, too, that there are other people who are finding other ways to protest, either like looking into transferring.

0:25:27 Thomas: You said transferring. So that's going to be, I got to react to that.

0:25:30 Eli: Hey transferring yeah sure

0:25:33 Lydia: And these are students that are saying that the way that the graduate student is being treated in this situation is highly problematic, highly unfair.

0:25:42 Thomas: What about faculty? I know that's sometimes rough and maybe there's some, I don't know, union stuff, but like, can they protest in any way about this? Have they?

0:25:49 Eli: Also

0:25:51 Lydia: I haven't seen anything related to the faculty specifically. The other graduate students have been pulling together at Oklahoma University. They had their graduate student senate last week passed a resolution calling on the university to formally apologize to the instructor and protect her from further harassment. But that's basically all the teeth that they have as grad students. That's

0:26:17 Eli: We only get the blue cliff bars in our break room and it would be can we get the peanut butter ones

0:26:20 Thomas: Just to totally clarify so she prevailed on the bullshit grade thing she's like doesn't have to do the work that she's supposed to do cool as of now what happened to the

0:26:30 Eli: Too still

0:26:30 Lydia: Yep. They are still on leave.

0:26:33 Thomas: Grads grad teacher they're on the leave okay so they're not like fired

0:26:35 Eli: On leave

0:26:35 Lydia: They're still on leave while they pursue the investigation. Well, administrative leave, I don't think they get paid because of the way that you get paid as a graduate student based on teaching classes. If you're not teaching a class, you're not getting paid.

0:26:51 Thomas: It doesn't like cover their tuition though is that what it is or do they

0:26:55 Lydia: Yeah. I don'T think that their tuition would necessarily be at stake But in terms of like paying rent, groceries, all that stuff might be far more problematic for the for this individual to be able to cover. So that's where we're at pending the religious discrimination claim.

0:27:02 Thomas: Right interesting thing hmm fucking ridiculous now how much trouble so there's the main grad student professor who is trans right now what about the secondary one who was like hey yeah totally this is the right grade are they catching trouble from this really

0:27:26 Lydia: Unknown. Yeah. No, no. you know, Turning Point USA described it as trans professors, like plural, respond to Samantha's essay. And this second instructor, as far as I'm aware, is not trans and hasn't gotten any sort of pushback.

0:27:44 Thomas: Right and hasn't really gotten in trouble for For doing the exact same, you know, horrible sin that the other person did. Really? They didn't get in trouble either? I thought I saw that. Wow.

0:27:55 Lydia: I haven't seen anything that both of them were removed. I've seen it's just the first instructor that has been placed on administrative leave.

0:28:01 Thomas: It just goes to show how stupid this is. Because if this is genuinely a problem, like if this was actual discrimination, if this was a real thing, they both did the same thing. It's not any different, is it? Is there any reason that that's like a different thing?

0:28:14 Eli: No of course not they just feel comfortable picking on a trans person

0:28:19 Thomas: Wow. That's awful.

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0:28:26 Thomas: So then this got even worse, too. And this is something I just saw. This is like breaking as of recording. There was a professor who said, hey, they have like an and again, this is so dumb that we have to try to get to the bottom of all these classroom policies and stuff that we're trying to like look up and everything. But this professor who has an apparently already lenient attendance policy for their class was like, hey, anyone who goes to this organized protest that doesn't count towards your absences, because it's like I guess it's according to some people, it's because it'S like an official kind of somebody organized it like an organized event. And so even though they already have five fucking absences that you can just do for anything. And the professor's like, hey, if you go to this, that won't use up one of your unexcused things. Okay. And then some fucking asshole, some large necky, what's their name?

0:29:06 Lydia: For unexcused. Yeah, yeah. Full neck -y.

0:29:21 Thomas: Some full necky. A real fucking full necky of that class was like well what if I go to counter protest then then is that an excuse absence and apparently the professor said that's not an organized event like that's not a that isn't an official event or whatever because like so so no but if you organized a protest like if you actually set up you know I don't know what that means within the school but there's some distinction there that like some sort of like actual organized event versus just Because I guess hypothetically, you could just say you were doing fucking whatever and be like, yeah, I'm doing this and I should get to be out of class. It has to at least have some semblance of like an actual sanctioned event or whatever. Apparently, the professor said, well, if you organize one, then yeah. But if there's not an organized one, than no. And now this fucking professor has been suspended. So then this statement comes out.

0:29:31 Eli: Killed them killed that lecturer well

0:30:44 Thomas: Not what to think. It also just teaches them stuff. Can we do that? I'm sorry. This is one of my biggest pet peeves with the fucking, how holy we get about the universities. And I've heard this speech for 15 fucking years. Oh, university is supposed to teach you how to think no. Sometimes they just teach you math. Sometimes there's teach you the fucking facts of the, the fucking medical science. It's not always teaching you how we need to know. You have to be able to think critically from every viewpoint of whatever. No, often you're just learning facts about the world because you need to know facts about the world to do your fucking job. But anyway, to continue, they're teaching you how to think, not what to think. Sorry. Really? They're not teaching you what to thank. They're not. If you go, if you're pre -med, they are not teaching you, hey, here's what you should think about the fucking human anatomy. Yeah. Nope. We can't teach you that the shin bones connected to the knee bone. We don't teach you what the think. We only teach you. I get so tired of that. But anyways, sorry. The director further stated that any student, regardless of viewpoint, would be excused if absent from class today to attend the protest without penalty and that the lecture had been replaced effective immediately for the remainder of the semester.

0:30:58 Eli: You know we can't we can

0:31:27 Lydia: Anatomy. Yeah.

0:31:32 Eli: Dig around in there you come up with a name by the same head of the psych department fuck

0:31:54 Thomas: Yeah, the one guy. God damn it. The University of Oklahoma unequivocally supports the decision and swift action taken by the director of first year composition regarding this matter. Her actions are fully consistent with university policy governing prohibited classroom conduct and the lecture has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation who are these investigators god they're working fucking overtime jesus csi fucking oklahoma university

0:32:17 Lydia: Yeah, it's crazy.

0:32:20 Eli: Also guys while we're all together for these two incidents uh one of our students says that he's being chased by a half a lump

0:32:27 Thomas: More like hey while while you're here um another one of these students is is uh reporting a sexual assault nope don't fucking care we're just gonna we're gonna work on these uh yeah

0:32:28 Lydia: Man,

0:32:35 Eli: No no we gotta make sure that everyone was allowed to go to the counter protest that didn't exist

0:32:42 Thomas: Classroom instructors have a special obligation to ensure that the classroom is never used to grant preferential treatment based on personal political beliefs, nor to pressure students to adopt particular political or ideological views.

0:32:53 Lydia: That's so crazy.

0:32:55 Thomas: Just because, again, it wasn't an official event. So they actually have to give preference. This is what this is all about. You have to give preferential treat to Christians. Otherwise, I'm just so sick of their fucking fucking baby child like just childlike demand for preferential treatments this fake victimhood shit I'm so sick of the christian victimhood shit oh you didn't they get to go to an organized event and get an excused absence but I can't just make up a thing that I'm going to and get an excusing absence even though it's not yeah so they have to give them preferential treatment by saying, okay, if you declare that you're one of those fucking assholes who's against the protest, then do whatever you do. You know what? Do whatever the fuck you want. That's what it has to be. That's like when you're fed up as a parent one day and you can't take it anymore. And you're just like, you know, yeah, do whateveryou want. Go fucking do anything

0:33:07 Lydia: Because they're babies. Piece.

0:33:31 Eli: What if I want to throw a shame parade yeah I guess you get to throw ashamed parade happy july yeah eat cookies for breakfast this was a disgusting breakfast every

0:33:58 Lydia: Oh, it's me and Remy. Yeah.

0:33:58 Thomas: You want. I can't handle how much of a goddamn fucking child you are. Ican't handle it anymore. More do what you want hey take any degree you want you get you get just pick your degree you can have it you get this degree god well

0:34:12 Eli: College is vassar college now

0:34:14 Lydia: Honestly, what it sounds like to me, though, is that the university needs to clarify their policies, because like if the instructor is basically saying, well, this is a, you know, university sanctioned event, the protest, then the university is responsible to say that then any counter protest to that sanction event is also considered part of the sanctioned event and then that's allowed.

0:34:41 Eli: Thomas could be making this

0:34:43 Thomas: I I think my okay and again this is like breaking as of today and you know there's so much you know it's tough to get the right information on this I could be no except I'm not eli so it's based on something my my impression is that this is actually the policy that it is actually consistent with the policy to say well it's just it's not not even a university sanction thing I think it just has to be a student organized event with some sort of at least official designation in that way

0:34:46 Eli: Up or lydia how dare

0:35:03 Lydia: Yes. No, I agree. But what I'm saying is then the policy should be changed to reflect like the other side then also is like part of it.

0:35:13 Thomas: I think the point I'm making is that's not workable they they aren't they don't want to change a policy they're either so deathly afraid of maga or in the tank for them that anything that could remotely be perceived as unfair to these fucking bigots you just have to bend over backwards and so this teacher didn't think to modify their policy as to favor these bigots in time like they didn'tthink on their feet enough And so that was their problem there. You can't actually have a workable policy that is, well, if they say that it's a good thing, then just give them an excused absence. That doesn't work. That's not real.

0:35:47 Lydia: All I'm say is that if they're saying, well, I want to go to that, but to be on the other side of the line kind of thing, like couldn't that then just be like part part of the same event. I don't know.

0:35:56 Thomas: This is yet another professor suspended and yet another nothing. But I think you had something to bring up about your pen pal, your good friend, your nemesis.

0:36:12 Lydia: Yes, Ryan Walters. Yep. I have been monitoring his doings, just so everybody knows on Facebook and stuff.

0:36:18 Eli: You you just email him he doesn't have a lot going on these

0:36:21 Lydia: And he was bat signaled in from the very beginning. And He showed up, you know, he, he truly showed up for Samantha, who he considers an American hero, by the way.

0:36:22 Thomas: He can pause the movie. Wait, for Samantha? I thought he was about teachers' unions and wouldn't he come in and... Right.

0:36:36 Lydia: Oh, yeah. So So here's the thing. Christians above all else, Right. If you click on the link that I sent to you, it's a step down from Fox News. This is called America's Voice that he appeared on. And it's hard to watch. But if you go to 448, that's when he starts talking about what's going on with this case from his perspective. We all missed him. So, you know, bringing him back.

0:36:46 Eli: Days no

0:37:01 Clip: Ryan, let's now go to the big story out of your own home state of Oklahoma. A University of Oklahoma student down in Norman says she failed an assignment because the transgender teaching assistant who graded it disapproved of her religious message in that assignment.

0:37:06 Eli: God you can taste the usb mic everyone

0:37:10 Thomas: Yeah, they have like a USB RE20.

0:37:16 Clip: Where are we in this situation has that has that student had that grade restored is the teaching assistant punished what's going on right now well right now you know ou is saying they're investigating it and they're looking into it and all of that but but again this is an example of what we've been saying for years which is higher ed is at war with christians uh you see it play out time and time again hey oklahoma is the red state in the country and yet you even see this happening there and look samantha's an american hero america samantha stood up and said said, listen, this is my opinion. That's what the paper is about. I cited the Bible, and because we've got transgender activists that are pushing woke indoctrination on our kids, they say, no, sorry, that doesn't count. Your opinion is evil. We're not going to count it. We are going to zero you out. We re going to hurt your academic career. Brilliant student here, because we hate Christians. We hate Christianity, not on our watch. And so listen, everybody involved in this should be fired any of the professors that okayed a zero because she cited the bible they should be out and listen we should be reviewing their taxpayer status you cannot continue to have

0:37:50 Thomas: No. Didn't cite it. Their taxpayer status? Oh, the school. Yeah. We should how many deductions are they saying how many yeah pretty much it's

0:38:23 Lydia: For the school. Yeah, I had that same reaction. Yeah.

0:38:32 Eli: From ou their degree should be invalidated and those hey well I'm just saying shit and I truly am because I just work for a republican think tank I think we should kill them all I think we should fucking get together and horseback ride through the campus with sabers

0:38:48 Thomas: Always like they're a couple steps away from that it's not like that far off of what they're saying do I should I keep going on yeah I I heard the karate noises in the background you know jackie chan maybe oh okay yeah well

0:38:54 Lydia: No, it's fine. I just wanted to get a little flavor of Ryan Walters in the show. I missed him. Yeah.

0:38:56 Eli: You just missed ryan we all missed Ryan. Sorry, that was me.

0:39:07 Thomas: Well, I fucking hate this. What is that? What is

0:39:08 Eli: The famous outro for Where There's Woke.

0:39:10 Thomas: Trump's old? Yeah. Hey, what is Trump sold? Ex -neighbors kid to have to say about what was that guy? Wasn't it?

0:39:20 Lydia: David.

0:39:22 Eli: Thomas, thank you so much for inviting me. It's me, full neckies uncle. When my father first cited the Bible to me, he crossed out all the letters except for Donald Trump. And I'm going to say something that maybe I shouldn't say. I tried to kill myself last time.

0:39:52 Thomas: Good times well eli bosnick uh do you have any podcasts or anything you'd yeah oh

0:39:57 Eli: Yeah, I got a couple. You can hear me on D -Roll Dance. Ants, Godawful Movies, those are the ones that the Smiths agree to come on. Then you can come on over to Scathing Atheist, A Skeptocrat, Citation Needed. Whoa! All right, now you got to come On Citation Needed.

0:40:07 Thomas: I mean we would come on literally any of your podcasts never been invited yeah

0:40:10 Lydia: Yeah, you just don't invite us to the other ones. Yeah. Oh, okay.

0:40:16 Eli: Now we got you.

0:40:16 Thomas: Absolutely can't wait I've wanted to come on that show for years

0:40:19 Lydia: But everybody's on, so it's like, it's literally seven mics.

0:40:22 Eli: Yeah, it's eight voices.

0:40:24 Thomas: They'll have Michael Marshall on they'll have marsh on it apparently marsh can go on that show so people can go on it I guess like other people can be on the show all right well thanks so much for joining us as always and uh yeah tune in to dear old dads it was going to be a bonus but it's so good that it'll be out for everybody so you need to hear that the email that almost made both eli and I die and puke

0:40:29 Eli: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they barely let Tom on it. He's almost never on the show. Forever.

0:40:47 Thomas: Out our insides

0:40:49 Lydia: I can't wait.

0:40:54 Thomas: Laughing well we wanted to give some updates since we recorded first off I want to tell you that I found that that stupid fucking video that I was referring to. Yeah.

0:40:55 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:41:05 Thomas: It's from 2015, 20 million views because everybody shared this because they thought it was all this exact person. And I'm trying to find the relevant clip here.

0:41:13 Clip: Taxpayers but then who gets to go to the summit oh we haven't added our privilege points yet don't you know anything that is correct now penelope you are female so that's plus one privilege point. However you are white so that's minus one. I'm also bisexual. Plus one. That leaves you with a total score of six out of ten. Simon unfortunately you're straight white and male. And cisgender. Yes so that minus four privilege points which leaves you were the total score one. It's only fair. Now Now you, you're male and I don't like you. So that's minus two privilege points, but you are brown and sexually ambiguous. That leaves you with a total score of five.

0:42:12 Clip: I'm gay, I'm trans, I am Asian. I'm overweight, I lower class, I'm unintelligent, unattractive. I've got hairs on my nipples. And I also got body odor. And I can't really run properly or tie my shoelaces by myself. I once watched a pigeon die. That's 13 privilege points. That leaves you with a total score of 18 out of 10. Well done, Sunshine, you're going to New York.

0:42:46 Lydia: That is so dumb okay who participated in this

0:42:49 Thomas: Yeah, that's what they thought. It was, well, it's some, it's some comedian. I was actually looking like, where are they now?

0:42:55 Lydia: Like comedian in quotes none

0:42:55 Thomas: Cause this is now 10 years ago. Well, and it's also somebody you could hear. They were like maybe Australian. No, it's not funny.

0:43:01 Lydia: Of it was funny none of its creative

0:43:04 Thomas: Neil Emile Kolhatar is an Australian stand -up comedian and filmmaker.

0:43:08 Lydia: Are you neil are you a stand -up comedian I don't

0:43:11 Thomas: This was something that literally every fucking person within a certain intellectual dark web fire .org type thing. This is what was going on in the coddling of the American mind. Yeah, it's just stupid. And then it's exactly what's happening now.

0:43:21 Lydia: Know god it's just so bad yeah yeah

0:43:27 Thomas: If you're Christian, you get to just be like, I don't like the assignment. I don'T want to do it. I'm going to do a different thing and talk about the Bible. And then It's like, yeah, okay, you're getting an A. It's actually happening, but on their side.

0:43:36 Lydia: Well you ready for some even worse news breaking as of yesterday this happened happened literally yesterday. I was looking up updates to see like, oh, do we have anything here? And yep, we do.

0:43:39 Thomas: Oh, worst news. Great. Oh, geez.

0:43:51 Lydia: So here's the statement from the University of Oklahoma that they issued yesterday on X. A student's claim of religious discrimination on an individual assignment in an online psychology course taught by a graduate teaching assistant has come to resolution. As stated previously, the student followed two available processes at the university, the great appeals process in the college, and she made a formal claim of illegal religious discrimination. As already announced, the grade appeal was decided in favor of the student—that's what we talked about on the episode—removing the assignment completely from the student's total point value of the class, resulting in no academic harm to the student. The claim for discrimination has been investigated and concluded. The university does not release findings from such investigations. At the same time of the investigation, the provost, the university's highest -ranking academic officer, and the academic dean reviewed the full facts of the matter. Based on an examination of the graduate teaching assistant's prior grading standards and patterns, as well as the graduate teacher assistant's own statements related to this matter, it was determined that the graduate assistant was arbitrary in the grading of this specific paper. The graduate teaching assistants will no longer have instructional duties at the university.

0:45:01 Thomas: Unbelievable. It's arbitrary to want somebody to actually read the fucking paper and do anything related to it.

0:45:01 Lydia: That's a big deal. That's huge deal. And then, you know, here's their little like jack off motion towards the end. 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. Again, the University of Oklahoma believes strongly in both its faculty's right 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, no,

0:45:35 Thomas: Ridiculous. You're not teaching them how to think or you're not even. Yeah, you're doing neither. Either. You're not teaching them how to think. If how to think is, I get to spew Bible fucking bullshit and then whine to the governor when you're mean to me, that's not anything.

0:46:00 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Critical thinking. Step one. OK, I have a problem with my grade and I chatted with the instructor. What's my next step? Well, this student probably needs some help with their critical thinking skills. So why don't we work on figuring out what their next step is instead of going the governor? Yeah, absolutely.

0:46:13 Thomas: Yeah. Well, critical thinking, one, read the assignment and do the assignment, you know?

0:46:20 Lydia: 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. A bunch of pathetic nonsense right here. I could not believe that was the outcome. I should have known.

0:46:30 Thomas: Fuck off. Yeah, I feel like you guys were all optimistic. I don't know what the fuck you're smoking.

0:46:42 Lydia: I don't know.

0:46:45 Thomas: Eli, I hope you listened to this because I was right and you were wrong. Everything sucks.

0:46:47 Lydia: I feel like this is insane. It's insane and such a slap in the face to this instructor. Now, the graduate teaching assistant is represented by a lawyer and they have indicated that they are looking into appealing the decisions.

0:46:54 Thomas: Sucks yeah yeah no kidding I hope that that can be

0:47:11 Lydia: Yeah, and I'm sure that there's administrative appeals that they'd have to do first, but there is a potential that we might see something hit a docket somewhere. Yeah, I just literally, again,

0:47:16 Thomas: Done yeah I'll cover this fucking lawsuit please please

0:47:23 Lydia: I know I shouldn't be shocked. I was shocked. And for like a graduate teaching assistant, I thought some of the articles that were covering this, they say like fired, the graduate teaching assistants been fired. And I was like, well, that's a little inflammatory. And then I was thinking about it again. And I said, well no, like the entire reason that they're going to graduate school is likely, if they're on a PhD track, they're looking to become a professor. That teaching experience is critical, critical to developing them to be like competitive candidates in like tenure track positions when they want to go apply. And so firing them from that specific aspect of their experience in graduate school is a huge deal and I am so sorry for that person. Yeah, it's just shocking and depressing. I wish I had better news.

0:48:13 Thomas: Absolutely ridiculous it is that skit but in reverse this is dog shit and I really hope there's a reaction from the school from the right thinking people at the school the the faculty students this is unacceptable we need to put a stop to

0:48:27 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah it's really really bad. The American Association of University Professors was like trying to advocate for the teaching assistant in all steps of this process. I know I had mentioned in the episode that the graduate student body trying to abdicate on behalf of themselves because they don't really have any other rights, you know, is attempting to. I hope to hear more this week from some of those groups because I'm sure they are incredibly disappointed with this outcome as well.

0:48:54 Thomas: Well that is uh definitely a bad result But I had a lot of fun with Eli. Thanks again to Eli Bosnick for coming on. Check out Eli's shows, of course. Scathing Atheist, Godawful Movies, all those, all the ones. Dear old dads. And thanks, Lydia. And thank listeners. We'll be back next time for some more anti -woke bullshit.