General Discussion

If the instructor is trans, it was brave for him/her to give a zero for this essay (poorly written as it may be), especially in Oklahoma given how conservative the state is. Personally I don’t believe a zero was necessarily warranted, since the essay did argue a viewpoint, just really badly. Hell, this essay is so bad it can’t be mistaken for something written by ChatGPT, so at least there’s that. If she had received a bad grade (barely passing grade), I don’t think this would ours have received the press it has.

This whole thing feels like manufactured outrage. It’s like the student was on a fishing expedition, looking for a way to play victim, which is fairly typical among conservatives nowadays. I mean this was an easy target: big state school in a very red state, instructor may be trans, and it hits on a perfect culture war topic.