The Professor Will See You Now (If They Still Have a Job)

In this week's episode, Drs. Salles and Burgart perform a critical examination of academic freedom under attack, focusing on the viral case of an Oklahoma pre-med student who's created a fever pitch of controversy by turning in shoddy work and targeting her transgender professor. The doctors dissect how right-wing influencers are turning classroom disagreements into national culture war symptoms, with concerning implications for academia's immune system.

Our hosts investigate the alarming trend of politically-motivated complaints against university professors. From Indiana University to Texas A&M, faculty are experiencing acute cases of administrative panic when confronted with student outrage—often resulting in terminal employment outcomes.

Fact Check: The correct way to reference people from Somalia is Somali, not Somalian. We apologize for the error!

Links

• Here’s more about Samantha Fulnecky and the story at the University of Oklahoma
• Here’s more about the instructor (Jessica Adams) who was removed from teaching her class at Indiana University
• Here’s more about the instructor (Melissa McCoul) who was fired at Texas A&M and the findings of the faculty committee that reviewed what happened
• Jennifer Freyd’s DARVO concept - Deny-Attack-Reverse Victim and Offender

💊Take Two and Call Me In The Morning 💊

• Here’s one of Haley Dortch’s videos. You’re welcome!
• Somebody, Somewhere on HBO
• How I escaped MAGA! Critical thinking woke me up.
• Nurse Johnn on being unprofessional
• Here’s Jeff Hiller’s book Actress of a Certain Age

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness with Drs. Arghavan Salles and Alyssa Burgart!

Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles and Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Theme Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Chapters

• 1:03 Erika Kirk’s NYT interview
• 4:55 Drama at University of Oklahoma
• 5:56 Turning Points USA role
• 12:05 The Implications for Academic Freedom
• 14:13 Trolling her teacher
• 18:01 A good student?
• 23:56 DARVO
• 35:09 The Value of Higher Education
• 45:01 Dehumanization and Political Rhetoric
• 45:51 Take Two and Call Me In The Morning

Transcript

Alyssa Burgart (00:00)
It is so disappointing to me for someone to claim that they want to be a physician, that they want to be in a caring profession, and so quickly demonstrate directly to another human being that they don't give two shits about them.

Arghavan Salles (00:16)
Hey there, fellow nerds. Welcome to another episode of The Present Illness, the podcast where two physicians try to make sense of a world that's a little febrile and definitely, I would say now severely underdiagnosed. And I'm Arghavan Salles a surgeon scientist and your friendly neighborhood doom scroller in residence.

Alyssa Burgart (00:35)
And I'm Alyssa Burgart an anesthesiologist and bioethicist who tracks news and health law like their EKGs, full of spikes and surprises. The Present Illness is where we dig into public health, politics, culture, and ethics with a scalpel in one hand and a meme in the other.

Arghavan Salles (00:50)
Once again, we want to thank everyone who's listening to this episode or has listened to any of our previous episodes, especially those who have liked us enough to subscribe or follow. We appreciate you so much. And a warm welcome to anyone who just stumbled in from Erica Kirk's atrocious New York Times interview.

Alyssa Burgart (01:07)
Wait, I didn't read this. What did she say?

Arghavan Salles (01:10)
Well, I don't blame you because it just happened, but going keep this quick.

Alyssa Burgart (01:12)
So, and I just want to be, hang on, and Erica Kirk

is Charlie Kirk's widow, right?

Arghavan Salles (01:17)
Correct, you got it. So we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about this, but just for context, like the New York Times has this major event, it's called Dealbook. I'm not real sure why Erica Kirk needed to be platform there, number one. Number two, they ask her about voters and women in particular and Zoran Mamdani. She doesn't live in New York, she's not from New York. Interesting choice of question. Now her answer though is really what's.

Alyssa Burgart (01:18)
Okay.

Arghavan Salles (01:46)
it's almost astonishing. Like she rambles. It's really hard to know what she's saying except for she seems to be implying that women are choosing to not get married and to rely on the government for even relationships. I mean, it's very hard to understand if you're a rational person listening to her and trying to actually interpret what the words she's saying mean. It's a bit of a struggle, but I'm just gonna be honest. But it's something along the lines of

women are using, she's suggesting that women are using the government as a replacement for relationships and support. But also we're not having kids and so presumably we have a career but then we're relying on the government for support. It's a little hard to comprehend.

Alyssa Burgart (02:31)
I might just pass on that then. I might just... you read it, I think maybe I can just not read it, right?

Arghavan Salles (02:37)
I think it is not essential to your understanding of anything in this world unless you're particularly interested in this specific person. But I would like to point out to the New York Times who recently asked if women had ruined the workplace, I would just like to point out that there are women who are situated to understand that question and answer it coherently. We do exist, we are out there. Some of us have degrees studying gender and we're available for platforms like that.

⁓ and that might make more sense. Just saying.

Alyssa Burgart (03:10)
I love an opportunity to platform expertise. Love it. Well, I didn't read that, but you know what I did read, Arghavan, that I would like to share? We got a really nice five-star review. I thought I would share it with you.

Arghavan Salles (03:15)
That's right.

Hmm.

Yeah, I'd love to hear it.

Alyssa Burgart (03:25)
Okay, it says, so the title says, just what the doctors ordered, which I love, because I love a pun. ⁓ The host graces us with insightful commentary, delightful banter, and incisive wit. The Present Illness shines a light on what's ailing us with just the right mix of seriousness, compassion, and levity, a real treat to listen to. I mean, thank you, and stop it some more.

Arghavan Salles (03:30)
Aww.

Alyssa Burgart (03:54)
I love, that was so sweet. Thank you so much to Funk Doctor M-E-P-H-D.

Arghavan Salles (04:02)
Absolutely. Well, we, listen, we love a good review. Feel free to write us some more.

Alyssa Burgart (04:07)
and we would love to read them online. Also, if you don't wanna leave it on Apple Podcasts, I added something to Buzzsprout. You can just text us. So right at the top of the episode, it says text us. It's a link. You just click it and tell us what you think. We would love to hear from you.

Arghavan Salles (04:19)
Okay.

Oh, I love that. That's great. Thank you. Okay, so today I want to talk about something I've been thinking about all week. And it's relevant to both of us in particular, because we work in higher ed, but also super relevant to anyone who cares about, to your point, expertise, getting an education, the value of an education, the value of academic freedom and freedom of speech. And folks may have seen this story in various

Alyssa Burgart (04:28)
All right, well, Arghavan, what do you want to talk about today? Tell me.

Mmm.

Arghavan Salles (04:55)
levels University of Oklahoman detail, but basically what's happened this week is a student at Oklahoma University, or I believe it's actually University of Oklahoma, even though they go by OU, it's a little confusing. Anyway, at that institution, a student who's a psychology major, who is a junior taking a psychology class, wrote an essay that received a score of zero out of 25 points. And the...

Alyssa Burgart (05:21)
⁓

Zero? How do you get zero points? Do you not even write your name on it?

Arghavan Salles (05:27)
Well, I think if you see the essay, it will become clear. So we will talk about what's actually in the essay in just a moment, but I will just say that I wanna just say before that, that what happened was a student, just a big picture, the student got a zero. The student was upset at getting a zero. The student filed a complaint and will try to appeal the grade and then filed a complaint. And then the university...

remove the instructor from that course. So student got a grade that the student didn't like, and we will talk about what's in that essay, and then the instructor is the person who's removed from their job. So the student then ⁓ also had gone to their local Turning Point USA chapter, another connection to what we were just talking about with Erica Kirk, who is now the...

Alyssa Burgart (06:22)
So just

for folks who don't know. Yeah.

Arghavan Salles (06:24)
She's the CEO. Yeah, she's currently the CEO

of Turning Point USA, which was the company that ⁓ her former husband, ⁓ we all know, I think, was murdered. He was the person who had founded that company. So now she's the CEO. Anyway, so the student, her name is Samantha Fullnicki. This is all publicly available information. The student had... ⁓

coordinated with Turning Point USA. So Turning Point USA released, well, the local chapter, I should say, the OU chapter of Turning Point USA. So they had released her essay and also the feedback from the instructor. And this is where it gets really interesting because if you read the essay, I would say the most common response online has been, oh my, I would never, if my writing were that bad, I would not want anyone to see it. And yet she has chosen to make it.

national news, ⁓ which is a very interesting choice. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (07:22)
So, okay, and

I just, I've heard a little bit about this. Obviously, I don't know as much about it as you, but like I did see, I saw part of the essay. I didn't read the whole thing because it was so dumb. I'm ⁓ sorry, I just couldn't. I was like, I feel like I've seen enough. And then I did see the instructor's response and I know we'll get into the details, like, does this person, like, do they usually get bad grades? Like, is this a,

I'm just confused. If you did such a terrible job, you're just saying she's made it in this national news story. And I look to that essay, and I can understand why that is the feedback that the public is providing. ⁓ And honestly, I thought the instructor's response. And you and I teach a college course. Sometimes you have to give tough feedback to people, and you have to be very specific. And I thought that the instructor's response was actually

quite measured and quite professional. So tell us, tell us more.

Arghavan Salles (08:23)
Okay, yeah, I agree. think the instructor was quite generous. Okay, here's what I'm gonna say about the essay. So by the way, it's worth noting that when the essay first was released, a lot of people thought this was a freshman, right? Because it's like December, you could imagine someone in their first term, maybe not quite understanding how the assignment was supposed to work or something like that. But in reality, when I read, I'm gonna just read a couple sentences. This person is a junior, okay? And I don't know, to your question of like, does this person typically receive bad grades?

Alyssa Burgart (08:38)
Okay.

Arghavan Salles (08:53)
I have no idea, I don't know what their GPA is, but I did see, take it for what it's worth, I did see a TikTok of someone who says they go to that same university and who says that Samantha is in a sorority that requires maintaining a high GPA. And so presumably if Samantha has been able to stay in that sorority and is now a junior, that she should have been able to maintain a relatively high GPA, which suggests that,

Either this type of writing has been typically getting better grades or that she's capable of writing better than this. And we'll come back to that. So here's a couple of things that are in this essay. By the way, we don't know exactly what was supposed to be discussed, except that it's a reaction to some article they've read that has something to do with gender. so she says, Samantha says in the very first paragraph, God made male and female and made us differently from each other on purpose.

and for a purpose. She also says, yes, this is a psychology class.

Alyssa Burgart (09:53)
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang But it's a psychology class. Okay,

it's not like a, like I attended a religious university where we took religious studies courses where it had to do with like biblical interpretation. Like I took classes like that. But that sounds like this is not that kind of class.

Arghavan Salles (10:10)
This is not that type of class. And I think she could certainly have chosen to write about the Bible ⁓ from what I understand based on everything I've read, including the instructor's feedback. I think that would have been acceptable if she had used citations and references, which she does not do. She makes these kinds of statements like the one I just read you, but there's not like a chapter or verse that's cited. There's not a specific.

Alyssa Burgart (10:12)
Okay.

So she's like, okay, hang on, excuse me. So she's making biblical claims in a research paper and not even citing the Bible?

Arghavan Salles (10:49)
Yeah, I mean, so she says that she I know so she says that Right. I mean that's the thing is like there is a perfectly reasonable way to write a paper that incorporates the Bible if that's what you'd like to do, but then you should do that and she's arguing that she received this grade out of religious discrimination, but

Alyssa Burgart (10:50)
I mean, that shit's funny. I know how to cite a Bible verse.

Arghavan Salles (11:15)
Even people who I've seen online talking about, teach at a religious school or they went to a religious school, they studied theology are like, you couldn't turn this into a religious school either and expect to get a good grade because there's no citations, there's no evidence, there's nothing to support these assertions. She goes on to say, mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (11:32)
Let me tell you, I attended

a lot of religious school. And I mean, I got a good education, OK? Like, this is fascinating. OK, sorry, tell me more.

Arghavan Salles (11:40)
It is.

So she goes on to say, women naturally want to do womanly things because God created us with those womanly desires in our hearts.

Alyssa Burgart (11:51)
But did Joel Webin help her write the essay?

Arghavan Salles (11:53)
⁓

That's a great question. ⁓ I wouldn't be surprised.

Alyssa Burgart (11:58)
Okay, but like, hang on,

hang on, but I have questions for like when she does the rewrite. What's a, what's a womanly desire?

Arghavan Salles (12:02)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, isn't that a great question? I mean, I think I desire, as some people have said, smashing the patriarchy. Like, that's my womanly desire.

Alyssa Burgart (12:08)
I desire equal pay.

Ooh, ooh.

My womanly desire is for women to be able to be in relationships without being murdered.

Arghavan Salles (12:23)
⁓ wow, how dare you? Radacity.

Alyssa Burgart (12:25)
How dare I? Okay, so

sorry, go ahead, tell me more about our womanly desires as designated by God.

Arghavan Salles (12:30)
mean, it kind of just goes on like that. She says things like, it is frustrating to me to read articles like this. And she says things like, well, there's lots we could say about the essay, but she, for example, says that believing that there are multiple genders ⁓ is mundane. So she's criticizing her fellow students saying that they're cowardly and mundane when she is taking a position that is.

been around for, that has been around for much, much, much, much, much longer. Anyway, she also goes on to say,

Alyssa Burgart (13:05)
mean, that's just an opinion.

Again, like that's just an opinion. That's not a, it's just not a, that's not like a fact.

Arghavan Salles (13:12)
Right, correct. It's not a piece of evidence. She also says things like, he created us with such intentionally, not intentionality, but just intentionally and care. ⁓ And then she also says, I strongly disagree with the idea from the article that encouraging acceptance of diverse gender expressions could improve students' confidence.

Society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely harms American youth. Anyway.

Alyssa Burgart (13:52)
funny. Okay, I want to

Arghavan Salles (13:54)
Well, it is funny

until you realize that, I should have mentioned it earlier, but the person she's submitting this essay to is a trans woman.

Alyssa Burgart (13:57)
I'm not, mean...

⁓ Jesus Christ.

Arghavan Salles (14:06)
So she's intentionally writing an essay. It is known that the instructor's ⁓ gender is known.

Alyssa Burgart (14:11)
So

she's trolling her teacher. She's harassing her teacher and then claiming religious discrimination. That's classy. Wow. Jeez Louise.

Arghavan Salles (14:15)
Correct. Correct.

Discriminations. Correct. Correct.

So to your point about the instructor's feedback, ⁓ the instructor had, I 100 % agree with you, been very kind and generous. I'm not gonna read by any means the whole thing, but I'll just read the first couple sentences. The instructor's name is Mel Kurth. Mel says, please note that I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs, but instead I'm deducting points for you posting a reaction paper that does not answer the questions for this assignment.

contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive. She goes on to say you're more than entitled to your own beliefs, but you have to back them up. You have to use evidence. And nevermind that the position you're arguing is actually at odds with the majority of the scientific evidence out there. Anyway, ⁓ then the university,

So, you know, people are gonna do what they're gonna do. And this is not the first time we've seen a student going after an instructor, even this academic year, which we're only a couple months into this academic year. But these universities, I think have a responsibility that they are failing to meet. And so the University of Oklahoma, in response to this, put out a public statement saying that they are very concerned about First Amendment rights, whose First Amendment rights, mind you.

Samantha's apparently, but not the instructors, and that they are reviewing the situation. And they say, 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.

And then.

Alyssa Burgart (16:11)
Like, that's literally,

I mean, your academic assignments are the way that you demonstrate your understanding of the material in order to obtain an evaluative grade.

Arghavan Salles (16:24)
But they are making this, Samantha and her mother, who by the way has defended multiple folks who were involved with January 6th, have made this. I know, shocking. They have made this about her freedom of speech. But the thing is freedom of speech doesn't give you a right to a grade that you have not earned, right? So.

Alyssa Burgart (16:33)
There it is.

So yeah,

Jesus, ⁓ my God. This is exactly the sort of nonsense about, you know, like the cancel culture panic. It's like, I'm sorry, you do not have a fundamental right to a good grade. You don't. You do not have a right to a good grade. You do not have a right to a grade that is not commensurate with the amount of work that you put into it. You didn't, you literally had an assignment.

Arghavan Salles (17:02)
Correct.

Yeah, with the product that you turned in.

Alyssa Burgart (17:17)
with rules and you didn't do it. So like

Arghavan Salles (17:22)
And

I think a question that has been raised that is valid is, was this intentional?

Alyssa Burgart (17:30)
I mean, you telling me that her mom is a lawyer for January six people tells me she planned this shit. I mean, obviously I am. That is my off the cuff opinion. I have no evidence to support that belief. But when. I mean, a third year student who is reportedly in a sorority that requires them to have high grades and I mean, listen, great inflation is real. That's a real thing. But like, let's just presume that this is generally a good student.

Arghavan Salles (17:41)
Right. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (18:01)
and three years in decides she's going to railroad a particular course. I mean, she's a psychology major and it's a psychology course. So this is also a course in her own major. mean, it just, that sounds pretty darn intentional. And it's wild to me also that like a reportedly, let's assume again, smart person who usually does a good job on their assignments would so explicitly not

Arghavan Salles (18:12)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (18:29)
appropriately do this specific assignment. Like it feels not only spiteful, but it feels intentional. And especially now that I see that there's, you know, a lawsuit coming out about this. I mean, it just feels like she did it on purpose to create this whole fervor. That's crazy.

Arghavan Salles (18:47)
I mean, I agree with you. Like, obviously we don't really know, but I thought from the first time I read about it, once I learned about the identity of the instructor, that this was an intentional move to specifically target a trans instructor. We know that this administration, the federal government that we have right now, this administration has been trying to eliminate really any race trans people.

Alyssa Burgart (18:54)
Mmm.

Arghavan Salles (19:15)
And this seems, again, it seems, I don't have any proof, who knows, but it does seem like it's intentional. Samantha has now gone on Fox News, people are talking about like, she's kind of following in the path of Riley Gaines, right? Someone who, Riley Gaines for people who don't know, tied for at fourth in a swimming meet. And one of the people who finished ahead of her was a trans woman. And she's really made this her entire personality. We're talking years later, and this is like,

most of what she talks about, but she's become this right-wing influencer. And so it does seem like this is a way to launch your own career as a transphobic right-wing influencer if you're someone like Samantha. Now, interestingly, I just read yesterday that she's pre-med.

Alyssa Burgart (20:07)
no, no, no, no. Hang on, hang on, hang on, I can't.

Arghavan Salles (20:12)
Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (20:16)
This person wants to be a doctor?

Arghavan Salles (20:20)
Apparently, ⁓ this person who called a whole group of people demonic.

Alyssa Burgart (20:26)
Okay,

a person who had the audacity, I'm gonna say, to troll her instructor for being who they are, who selectively chose to do so in an essay about gender, would like to be in our profession in which, I mean, I...

understand that not everyone in medicine is beyond reproach, of course. But like I got into medicine to take care of human beings and I didn't get into it to decide to only take care of human beings who shared my belief system. So, ⁓

Arghavan Salles (21:01)
Thank

Alyssa Burgart (21:12)
That.

is horrifying.

but also...

I mean, I don't do med school admissions, but like, do you think that like they're Google, they're going to Google her and be like, what are you famous for?

Arghavan Salles (21:30)
Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I've done a lot of med school admissions work. I personally did not get in the habit of doing that. But I do think more and more schools and interviewers are doing that, especially as more people are on social media. And certainly, if anyone does Google her, this will come up. The essay itself will come up. This whole story will come up. And I think most medical school admissions committee members would

really frown on someone calling people demonic. I mean, as you said, we're here to care for everyone. And it doesn't matter what they look like or how they identify or what they've done in their lives. As physicians, we care for everyone who comes through the door. And you have to question whether someone like that would be able to do that when they think a certain group of people is demonic. I mean, that's quite the word to use. ⁓

Bye bye.

Alyssa Burgart (22:28)
I and

I, it's just so.

It is so disappointing to me for someone to claim that they want to be a physician, that they want to be in a caring profession, and so quickly demonstrate directly to another human being that they don't give two shits about them.

That's terrible.

Arghavan Salles (22:51)
Right.

And not only that, but like to be actively trying to cause harm to that person, right? That person has been placed on administrative leave. Mel, the instructor is, I believe a graduate student. So this could have really severe consequences for her career, all for Samantha to get some extra attention. And she, know, when she's, I've read her comments and seen her interviews, you know, she just says, well, I'm not gonna back down from my beliefs.

Alyssa Burgart (23:08)
So, yeah.

Arghavan Salles (23:19)
The problem is not your beliefs. mean, Mel said it herself. The problem is not your beliefs. I mean, except for calling people demonic, I would say that's crossing a line. But like you can have whatever religious belief you want to have, but if you're gonna write an academic essay, then you need to support your assertions with evidence. And she's insisting that that's never been ⁓ needed for this course and that the rules have changed in some way because she mentioned her religion. That's the story.

that she's telling. And she, just saw last Monday, they gave her an award, like some local politician gave her an award. Like she's already on her way to being the next Riley Gaines.

Alyssa Burgart (23:48)
you

Okay, this is just

infuriating. ⁓ So I think this is a really great time. I'm always kind of... ⁓

I immediately am thinking of Darvo. D-A-R-V-O, something that you and I have talked about many times, Jennifer Freyd's concept that deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. And this tactic that is used by abusers to blame the person who has been victimized and make themselves the victim. And it just feels like this is such a classic utilization in an unusual space, right? Like we usually talk about this in terms of

Arghavan Salles (24:11)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (24:39)
⁓ sexual assault and in sexual harassment and other forms of harassment, but seeing it in this way, so interesting how it is that this student has cast themselves as a hero, as a victim and a hero, ⁓ as someone to be uplifted. And you what's really wild is, I mean, it's Oklahoma.

Arghavan Salles (24:54)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (25:04)
girl is not the only religious person in this university. Oklahoma's got a lot of religious folks. A lot of evangelicals live in Oklahoma. Like, are you kidding me? It's not about you as like because you have a faith, because you have a faith tradition, even if it is a faith tradition that is apparently perfectly fine with characterizing human beings as demons, ⁓ which is a, you know, common

Arghavan Salles (25:27)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (25:33)
I mean, I hate it, but a common dehumanizing tactic within certain Christian circles. ⁓ But I am so, ⁓ I'm so concerned now about this instructor, because when you said instructor, I sort of assumed that it was, you know, people who are ⁓ not in tenure track roles obviously do not have as secure of a job position in general.

But if this person's also a graduate student, I mean, this may really impact their ability to get their PhD or their postdoc or whatever it is that they're working on.

Arghavan Salles (26:07)
exactly what I'm concerned about and I don't know if I have it here but they did have another person I think was the co-instructor for the course who also I don't think I saved it who also graded the essay but and completely agreed with the original assessment just for the record you know they did have a second instructor who agreed with the score that was given and I will say there's been much debate online about whether she should have been given five points or seven points or something out of you know

it's the same friends. Like that's still failing the assignment. Like if you want to argue that like, she turned it in, okay, like participation points, okay. But it's still going to be an F. Like there is no way that you can review the rubric and then give this person a score that's anything, honestly give this person a score that's anything other than an F. And I think part of the conversation, I mean, some folks have been talking about this, ⁓

the transphobic attack aspect of this. But a lot of people haven't, a lot of people talking about like, oh, what's the rubric? Was this the right rubric? Should the rubric have been written differently to communicate better? know, should the instructor have, this is also mind boggling, should the instructor have just given her a better grade to avoid this situation? Like that's what people are arguing online. That's the level of discourse that we're having because there are so many students who are weaponizing our federal administration's bigotry.

Alyssa Burgart (27:16)
I mean.

Arghavan Salles (27:35)
to go after instructors who are teaching things that they don't like. And so people are saying that maybe she should have just given her a better grade, not because the student deserved it, but because then this wouldn't have happened. And I think that's a really scary place to go where we are now saying students should get grades that they don't deserve so that they don't bully their instructors. Like how do we run? Yeah, exactly. How do we run a university?

like this.

Alyssa Burgart (28:05)
But it's so funny, right? Because when you think about, this person I guess is 20 years old, I think about the discourse that was happening like a year ago of people, sorry, like 10 years ago of like, parents are helicopter parents and there's just too much coddling of all of these kids and all of their getting these.

participation trophies and kids don't even have to work hard enough anymore to earn anything. And it's like, we had no idea how far it would go folks. Look at here, look at where we are.

Arghavan Salles (28:26)
Mm-hmm.

Correct.

Look at what's happening. Absolutely. And so I want to put also this whole situation in the context of what's been happening at other universities because this is not an isolated incident. I think this one's gotten more attention than some of the other ones, but even just this academic year, there are two other somewhat parallel stories that are played out at other universities.

So most recently at Indiana University, there was an instructor who was teaching a class called Diversity, Human Rights, and Social Justice. Okay, so you can tell based on those words, right, what is likely to be covered, right? Social justice, human rights, diversity. Okay, so this was in the school social work, I believe, and in one of the classes that was about race and ethnicity and structural racism.

Alyssa Burgart (29:11)
Sounds like my kind of clown.

Arghavan Salles (29:29)
the instructor shared a pyramid that includes multiple different aspects of white supremacy. And one of the things that was on the pyramid was MAGA. And apparently a student in the class took great issue with that and felt that that was discriminatory. And so complained not to the university, ⁓ but to Jim Banks, who's one of the senators from Indiana.

And Jim Banks then went to the university and the Dean of the School of Social Work, this is interesting to me, the Dean of the School of Social Work decided to file a grievance on behalf of the student against this instructor. And the way things are structured at this particular university, that Dean who filed the grievance is also the person who adjudicates, apparently, whether

there was some sort of violation, which is, as you can imagine, concerning to the instructor in question.

Alyssa Burgart (30:31)
That's a, I

mean, to be clear, that's a gross conflict of interest. I mean, that's not just concerning, like that's bananas.

Arghavan Salles (30:37)
Correct, correct. so,

yeah, you're right. This is a good word for it. So in this case, I also wanna give a sense of the timeline. So in this case, that class that was where this pyramid was shown was on September 22nd. And by October 6th, this instructor was removed from teaching that class. Now the instructor is continuing as I understand it.

⁓ to teach a few other classes at the institution this term, but they're not teaching that class anymore as this investigation ⁓ progresses. But we're investigating whether someone could teach something that was directly related to the topic of the course that they were asked to teach by the university. I just want to make that really clear because you and I have both been in conversations about academic freedom and it's been

clear to me, at least from our legal colleagues, that if you are teaching something that is in your area of expertise that is relevant to the subject of the class, that is in fact the subject matter of the class, that you are allowed to speak about it. And that is a case where they're considering, I guess, whether that's true. Like, that's wild. I just imagine...

being a biology instructor and teaching about evolution and having a student who says, that's not how it happened. The Bible says God created the whatever in seven days. I mean, you can tell I'm not a religious person, but whatever the things are about like how God created the world and a student could argue, right? They have a right to argue whatever they wanna argue, but a student, the precedent that is being set by these cases is that a student could argue that and then get ⁓ an instructor removed.

for teaching the truth about something like evolution. Like, I'm sure that sounds wild to some of the folks listening to this, but that is where we are going. Like that is clearly the direction of this line of thinking and where will it stop, right? If we say, is someone teaching a class on human rights and social justice can't talk about white supremacy, what other things are we going to say people can't teach about? I just wanna add one more example. Sorry, go ahead.

Alyssa Burgart (32:50)
Well, this is

well, and just again, you know, academic freedom correlates in it's not the same as free free speech, but it is a very related concept because it has to do with how it is that educators are able to educate people within their scope of expertise. And like it is not lost on me that it is the group that has been complaining.

over and over again about how, free speech is the pro, you know, we don't have enough free speech, we're not allowed to say whatever we want. Free speech is not being able to say whatever you want. That's not what free speech is. And that's an academic freedom, this idea that they're gonna use their free speech to eliminate the academic freedom of a person teaching within their area of expertise. I mean, the snake eats its tail, what are we doing?

Arghavan Salles (33:22)
Mm-hmm.

Right, and I think that maybe people aren't in the general public connecting these dots to think about what does that mean? If a student can get an instructor removed because they don't like the content of a course, not because it was inaccurate, not because it was, I don't know, hateful or whatever, but just because they don't like it, that is a terrible, terrible precedent to set. students are already kind of,

consumers, right? They're customers. So universities are already oriented to try to serve those students. I think that's part of why we're seeing this play out the way that it is. But then you're going to start having to, universities are going to start forcing instructors to change what they teach to please students. That is really antithetical to higher education. Higher education is supposed to be about exposing students to new ideas, helping them think critically.

and helping them expand their horizons. And what we see like in this case with Samantha is if she's upset that she's getting a bad grade because she hasn't opened her or expanded her horizons anyway, then what was it that she was expecting to get at a university? Do you see what I'm saying? Like what is it that we want? If students only want to be told the things they already know and to have people agree with everything they already believe,

What are they gaining from that education that they are spending thousands and thousands of dollars for? Like, I don't understand that piece of it. That's not the, the purpose of going to college is not for people to tell you everything you knew before was sufficient and correct. If you felt that way, why would you go?

Alyssa Burgart (35:24)
world.

Yeah, I mean, and I think this is also ⁓ part and parcel of like a lot of things that have to do with the diminishment of the value of expertise, you know, brought more broadly in society. And the fact that like because universities, I mean, I think there's a lot of criticisms to be made of universities and the rising cost of education and how, you know, it used to be that you could get a job with a high school degree. And that was your ticket to being able to

and make a living wage and raise a family and like all those things. And then it became that you needed to have a college education in order to do those things. So I think that there's also all of these issues around, ⁓ like you said, universities treating students as consumers. I think there's a huge problem in terms of using, like I want feedback from students about what's going well and what could be done differently so that I can improve as an instructor so that I can do my best work for them. ⁓ But what I'm not interested in,

Arghavan Salles (36:21)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (36:24)
is using those reviews as a way to say, well now you have to, these people are not pleased because they like it, so therefore you have to teach a different class or you have to teach outside of your expertise, like that doesn't make any sense. Like we've really lost the plot here.

Arghavan Salles (36:43)
Absolutely. And I just want to add a third example, which happened earlier this year at Texas A ⁓ And this was from a summer course that an instructor had taught. And in September was when it came to light. In this case, the student in the class had recorded the instructor in the middle of a lecture, which I believe when I last look is against the rules of the institution. Like they're allowed to record for their own use, like if it's part of their IEP or whatever.

not for sharing externally. And this student not only recorded, but then took that recording to a legislator. So again, going outside the university and going to a legislator who then went back to the university and even the governor of Texas was posting about this on Twitter. I should note that the governor of Oklahoma also has posted about the Samantha Philnecki case and the importance of freedom of speech, but again, freedom of speech for her, but not for the instructor. And so,

because of this external pressure from these legislators, the University of Texas A had originally not intended to punish this instructor for teaching what was supposed to be taught in her class, which by the way, just for, because I think I didn't mention it.

Alyssa Burgart (37:57)
to literally

punish a person for teaching what they're supposed to teach.

Arghavan Salles (38:02)
Yes, and so this person, the recording that was online and folks can look it up, it's easy to find. It was a section where the teacher was talking about gender and the student very clearly on the recording says, yes, this is illegal. What you're saying is illegal. And she references the executive order from like January where, ⁓ you know, our president insists that there are only two sexes, which is not even biologically true. But anyway,

Alyssa Burgart (38:28)
That's... That's

not how the law works.

Arghavan Salles (38:32)
There's also that. But so the student multiple times is saying like, this is illegal, what you're saying is illegal, you're not allowed to do the da da. And the teacher actually like was again, very gracious and said, you know, if this is making you uncomfortable, feel free to leave, you can step out. And the student keeps arguing. Anyway, so that's the basis on which the student was making a complaint that the teacher was talking about gender. And then the university after the legislators came to them, ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (38:59)
You know what?

want to, want to, ⁓ sorry, go ahead. So mad. So mad.

Arghavan Salles (39:02)
Hahahaha

Understandably, so the university fired the instructor and then also removed the chair of the department from being the chair, also removed the dean of the school from being the dean. And then, since then, so I had, mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (39:19)
Can you, little

pause, can you imagine if that's what we did when there were credible accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against teachers? Can you imagine if that was the response? Wouldn't that be interesting? I have not seen that generally.

Arghavan Salles (39:33)
I

I have thought about this as you won't be surprised to hear. Yeah, there's such a contrast with what happens when students report sexual harassment, sexual assault.

Alyssa Burgart (39:44)
Which, by

the way, is actually breaking a law. Lots of laws. Just to be clear. OK. Sorry. Going on.

Arghavan Salles (39:48)
Yes. Yes. And it's actually harmful.

It's actually harmful. Like, it's not just a grade. It changes the trajectory of people's lives. ⁓ And yet we never see swift action. In fact, most times we don't see any action at all in those cases. But what I was going to say is that at Texas A a faculty committee then investigated this whole situation and they reported back to the university president that actually there was no basis.

on which they should have fired this individual. Then the university had given three different reasons for her firing and they were like, no, none of these is valid, not a single one. ⁓ And the president apparently still gets to do whatever they want. So they are reviewing this information currently is my understanding. ⁓ It was their committee on academic freedom, by the way, that had done this review.

So the reason I wanna share that is that, again, the situation with Samantha Fullneckie, I'm glad, is getting a lot of attention as it should, and it's not the only one, only situation in which a student is attempting to get their instructor removed. Mel is the only trans person of these three instructors that I'm aware of. And so that's a new layer to this latest case.

But all of these are attempts by people who don't agree with certain perspectives to remove the faculty teaching those perspectives from the institution altogether when they could choose to just not take those classes, right? That's pretty easy. Just don't take that class.

Alyssa Burgart (41:23)
I mean, you know,

and again, you know, and it's so interesting because I feel like this is ultimate thought policing. I'm as like, as a student, I need to police the ability of other people to utilize critical thinking skills. That's bananas.

Arghavan Salles (41:31)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. Absolutely. But what does it mean for higher education? That's the thing. What do any of our institutions stand for? What are they offering students if it's the students who can determine what gets taught? What service are we offering? Yes.

Alyssa Burgart (41:44)
What?

How embarrassing.

Well, but it also shows like why, you know, I have colleagues that are like, well, you know, I'd love to teach a class about this, you know, abortion, or I'd love to teach a class about, you know, gender, but like, I know that it'll be, they have to worry about who's going to enroll, you have to worry about if you're going to get trolled by your own students. I mean, it's just, it's depressing. Like we should be able to have, and obviously like there are also classes where there's going to be opinions that you think are wrong and you should be able to make critical arguments.

in response to those. So again, like, if you want to make a critical argument and you want to ground it in evidence, wonderful, do it. That's part of the practice.

Arghavan Salles (42:43)
Absolutely. I I hope it's clear that neither of us is arguing that students have to agree with everything their instructor says, because that's definitely not what we're saying. But there has to be, ⁓ the whole point of these courses is like to teach people argumentation and to teach people how to have a respectful conversation across these differences and to use in the case of the psychology class, to use pieces of evidence to support the argument, right?

Alyssa Burgart (42:53)
No.

Arghavan Salles (43:08)
It's not just like, I've been using this example recently with RFK Jr. Like I think the sky is brown if you're RFK Jr. And then scientists are like, the sky is blue. And people are like, no, I don't know what it is. Is the sky brown or blue? Well, yeah, actually we do know. We very much do know that the sky is blue and we have no obligation to pretend that him saying is brown is somehow like accurate or valid. It is not. He doesn't have any evidence to support that assertion. He could not write an essay defending the position that the sky is brown, right? But there are other things where,

Yeah, you could have a difference of opinions, totally valid. And as long as you can provide evidence to support your position and help make your argument, then that can be a very well-written paper that would receive a good grade in a class, even if you disagree with whatever content what's up.

Alyssa Burgart (43:50)
The emperor has no clothes.

The emperor has no clothes. This is absurd. It's just, and it's so... ⁓

I'm so disappointed for people in this class who did the assignment, right? Like they've now, they now don't have this instructor. They are not getting the opportunity to learn what they would have learned. And, you know, and again, having, you know, I was, I was raised in a very religious household. I attended religious schools, ⁓ all through, I mean, I, I went to junior college that was secular, but I went to religious.

elementary school through high school. went I attended a religious medical school. attended a religious undergraduate school. My undergraduate school was Jewish. My medical school was Catholic. ⁓ You know, there's lots of people who believed a bunch of stuff that I don't believe. Like that's that's not the problem. I mean, I have a problem when when we are in caring professions, such as psychology, medicine, nursing.

Arghavan Salles (44:47)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (45:02)
You know, I do have

a problem with people who characterize other human beings as somehow unworthy of dignity, care, and love. That I have a problem with. You believe whatever you want about whatever, about the Bible and your interpretations of the Bible. And like, you can believe those things for yourself, but your beliefs should never harm your patient.

Arghavan Salles (45:09)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. That's right. I mean, we talk about that a lot with abortion, right? Like, if you don't believe in abortion, then don't have one. But what right does anyone have to tell someone else what to do with their body? We don't. We don't have a right to do that.

Alyssa Burgart (45:27)
If any medical student.

Don't get one. Don't get one. It's fine.

Well, it's only freedom for some people, Arghavan

Arghavan Salles (45:45)
Well, I mean, that has never been, well, maybe not never, but in my lifetime has not been more clear.

Alyssa Burgart (45:51)
Well, know, Arghavan, I think it's time. We've decided to give our little segment about joy. We've been saying what brings you joy, but we were talking, we're going to start calling it Take Two and Call Me in the Morning. to, because it's not always necessarily joyful, but it's usually something that we are getting entertainment from or sometimes joy, but sometimes like you had one that was like kind of scary, but it was still cool. So we're going to call it

Arghavan Salles (46:13)
Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (46:16)
Take two and call me in the morning. So this is the first one and I'm so excited. So, Arghavan, what do you recommend for our listeners?

Arghavan Salles (46:25)
Okay, I came across someone who needs many more followers. So I'm gonna tell you, we'll put a link in the ⁓ show notes. Her name is Haley Dorch, H-A-L-E-Y, D-O-R-T-C-H. And I just like randomly came across her yesterday when I was scrolling on TikTok as I do. And she's super talented, okay? This is a person who has an incredible singing voice, number one. Number two, she is hilarious. Like her whole shtick at this moment anyway, she has a relatively new account, I think.

Alyssa Burgart (46:32)
Okay.

Arghavan Salles (46:54)
is she acts like she's a specific celebrity singer or like Adele or Celine Dion or Whitney Houston or Lady Gaga, but she's like in her kitchen looks like she uses like a Swiffer as her microphone stand. she has like, she'll set the scene a little bit with just some text on screen. Like, so for Adele, she's singing, you know, one of her heart wrenching songs and the text on screen says something about like,

Alyssa Burgart (47:05)
Okay.

Ooh.

Arghavan Salles (47:24)
her mom, it's every time it's that her mom has asked her, aren't you lonely? Like her, Kaylee, aren't you lonely living alone? And she writes back, no, what are you talking about? I'm giving a stadium performance as I'm going through this terrible heartbreaking breakup. What do you mean? And then she's like, she puts her ⁓ headphones in her ears, like they're those, I guess, whatever microphones are, sorry, speakers that people, artists will have. I mean, I'm not, you can tell I'm not a musician, but you know, they have those like earpieces.

that help them to hear the music or whatever. And so she, yeah, what are they called? There you go, her headphones as like fake in-ear monitors and she'll like touch them. Sometimes she takes them out because she's like, I need to hear better or whatever. know, like, doesn't say that, but because you'll see our artists do that sometimes. So she's doing it just like with her little headphones. And...

Alyssa Burgart (47:55)
⁓ you're talking about monitors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're called in-ear monitors. Yeah.

Arghavan Salles (48:15)
And then she's like, for that one, she's just like super emotional as she's singing. ⁓ In other ones, is like, one of them, she ⁓ does that song from the movie that Lady Gaga did with Bradley Cooper. And it's the first performance of Shallow on stage. So she's like, what do you mean? My boyfriend just asked me to give this performance on stage to Stadium Full of People. It's my first performance. And so she like starts out very like anxious and not sure what she's, you know.

that not super confident by the end of the song she's like yes like full rock star mode and you know she'll like look out into it pretend like she's looking out into an audience and she'll anyway it's amazing i just love her vibe and also she's got just an incredible singing voice so she's actually singing these songs she's not lip syncing but she's singing these songs and then doing this whole like acting around you know trying to embody some specific feeling ⁓

Anyway, she's fantastic. Haley Dortch will put a link in the show notes.

Yeah, so what do you think people should test out or try out?

Alyssa Burgart (49:19)
Mm.

Okay, well, so I had already put in our little notes to each other that I wanted to talk about Somebody Somewhere, which is just a lovely, lovely show. I forget, I think it's on HBO, ⁓ but it's about a woman living in Kansas and sort of her, she's moved back home to care for her sister who died and the show sort of starts in the aftermath of her sister dying. There's three seasons. I've just been catching up on the latest season and it's just, a beautiful show. It's very tender.

She's actually a singer as well, and that's a through line that comes through this is how she's like really been wanting to really find her voice literally and figuratively, I would say. ⁓ And I love to sing, so I enjoy seeing that aspect of it. ⁓ But the other thing that I was realizing, I was thinking about a couple of things when we were talking earlier, which is that ⁓ the YouTube algorithm in all of its glory sent me a video that I just

Arghavan Salles (49:59)
Hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (50:19)
I, it dragged me in. I was cooking and it just started playing and I was like, well now I'm hooked and I have to watch this whole thing. And it was a ⁓ right wing YouTube influencer who has left the MAGA cult. ⁓ And she was very afraid to like be public about it, sounds like. And then when she started talking about it more, she realized there was a lot of interest in people who have been really deeply committed to MAGA who are

Arghavan Salles (50:33)
Mmm.

Alyssa Burgart (50:49)
seeing things differently now. ⁓ I, you know, I totally was into it. I enjoyed hearing her story. And she talked about how ⁓ her public school education where she learned about critical thinking was really important. She was raised, and I apologize, I don't remember her name, so I'll find the link and put in the show notes, but she was raised, ⁓ you know, in a very profoundly Mormon household and in a very Mormon community and.

got married very young, up finding out that her husband was cheating on her and left him and then switched church. like, she went through this whole thing that like the evolution ended up being that she was like, wow, I believe I have been trained to believe a lot of things politically that I don't think are in alignment with who I am and who I want to be. And that led her sort of out of out of the cult, which I thought was really interesting. ⁓ And then a third thing that I'll share just because we you talked very

Arghavan Salles (51:35)
Hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (51:45)
I can't help myself. You alluded earlier to the government not wanting to give loans to certain people, and I can only assume that that was in reference to ⁓ nursing, advanced degrees in nursing no longer being considered professional degrees and having that removed from the ability to get federal loans so that you may or may not be able to get those loans depending on who the

the loan servicer is. And so there have been so many, there's this guy named Nurse John who like, I don't love all of his videos, but there's a lot of them I love. And he has made some hilarious videos about how he's like, well, I don't have to be professional anymore. And he always is like dressed up as like different characters of nurses. And it's really funny because you know, he's like twerking and he's like, I don't have to be professional anymore. And like, he's, ⁓ he's, he's making the pay. He's like,

He always shows himself like opening a door as though he's going into a patient room and he's like insisting that the patient tips him like, like when you go to a restaurant that you like have to click which tip you're going to give. And he's like, no, I'm not a professional anymore. You got a tip. Like, it's just funny. So I'm an, put a link to that in the show notes because I, I just thought it was so funny. mean, nurses are doing such incredible work. We cannot have healthcare without nurses. The idea that they're not professional is, is bananas.

And so this video though, like really captured like just the absurdity that nurses are now having to face this accusation that they're not professional. It's hilarious.

Arghavan Salles (53:17)
Yeah, nurses, teachers, occupational therapists, I think a lot of people are on that list and it's deeply offensive. I did want to just say for Somebody, Somewhere, the actor who plays her friend, you know, the tall guy with the glasses, that's a connection. Throwback to our last week's episode, because he's also on Pluribus.

Alyssa Burgart (53:26)
Yeah, woofs.

Yes, yes.

That's right. I did see him on Pluribus and I love him. He's fabulous. He has a book. I forget if it just came. I haven't read it. I can't remember if it's come out yet or not, but he has a book that if it hasn't come out, it's coming out soon. That's all about like spontaneously becoming famous after being a working actor for decades and decades and like suddenly being super famous. I'm curious because I think he's so fun.

Arghavan Salles (53:44)
He really is.

Mmm.

He is, he seems like a really lovely person. All right, well, we've talked a lot.

that's it for this week's episode. If you didn't like what you heard, this has been the Tucker Carlson Show. If you liked it, don't forget to subscribe to The Present Illness. Leave us a review and tell your friends and neighbors and whoever else you run into to give us a listen as well.

Alyssa Burgart (54:17)
Ugh.

You can follow us on all the places we are on TikTok and Instagram at @ThePresentIllness and you can stay on top of all our TPI related news.

Arghavan Salles (54:35)
We'll be back next week with more headlines, hot takes, and doom scrolling, of course, hopefully wrapped in some laughs.

Alyssa Burgart (54:44)
Until then, agitate, hydrate, take a nap. See you next time on The Present Illness. And I wanted to say our new music that we have, we're going to have a credit section now. Our new music is from Joseph Uphoff. I do the editing. Arghavan and I do the producing together. And Arghavan runs all of our social media. Don't take medical advice from random people on the internet, including your podcast.

This show is for informational purposes. It's meant to be fun, and it's certainly not medical advice. So please take your medical questions to a qualified professional. And scene.