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Can Students Fail an Assignment if They Cite God? Not if Florida Republicans Get Their Way.
(www.friendlyatheist.com)
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
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There was a story about a student in Oklahoma getting a zero on an assignment and they suspended the teacher after the student complained.
You read the assignment and it's just really crappy, not merely religious, but because it had a religious bent, the conservatives exploded and asserted religious persecution. Even as anyone reading the assignment could see it was crap and the evaluators have a clear response explaining that the religious facet wasn't the problem, conservative media ran wild with the story. Most of the time they didn't even include the assignment or response, telling the audience to be outraged without letting them decided for themselves.
The wording may claim someone shouldn't be rewarded just for their religious views, but when it does come up, they demand a passing grade just because they assert "God's will".
This is generally already covered, but the very specific wording is ammunition to scenarios like the this.
I'm aware of that case, and if you read the language of the bill it doesn't address that situation very well.
That case is a weird one because I actually think both sides, the student and the graduate assistant grader, were wrong. And ultimately I think the GA was more wrong because the GA held the position of authority in the situation. I generally think that those in authority should be held to more strict standards.
In that specific case that you, there was a very clear scoring rubric published that the GA was supposed to follow. (You can find the rubric published online.) There is no possible way a rational person could read the grading rubric and conclude the student deserved a 0. Yes, it was a very stupidly written essay, but it wasn't a zero -not if you follow the published rubric. The student was given a zero only because of religious discrimination. The grader should have followed the rubric. If the grader has followed the rubric then the student still would have likely failed the assignment, but the grader would have been able to justify the grade and would probably have avoided getting disciplined.
That's my position on that. I'm sure you disagree and believe the student was 100% at fault.
I saw someone point out that it should have received a non zero score, however the word count was low enough to get hit by the stated 10 point deduction. And they thought it might be a 7 to 9 out of 25, but the word count brings it to zero.
Also it was just one assignment, not like they even were going to flunk the class, especially if, as she asserted, she otherwise had perfect scores on these reaction essays.