Explaining the Right is a weekly series that looks at what the right wing is currently obsessing over, how it influences politics—and why you need to know.

Conservatives have spent the last week grousing about the academic merits of an obscure college essay, a topic that right-wingers historically show little interest in. But in this case, the story isn’t really about college or academia or essays but is instead about yet another front in the right’s never-ending culture wars and an attempt to bully another minority group.

University of Oklahoma junior Samantha Fulnecky has alleged that her First Amendment right to religious freedom is being infringed after her psychology professor gave her an “F” for a paper on the gender norms of middle school students.

Fulnecky, a conservative Christ

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