Fired for doing job while trans. Bleak.
Every academic should be raising hell about this; in a better country, the whole faculty there would be on strike until this person was reinstated. I haven’t heard a peep from FIRE or any of the other “academic freedom” people who are constantly freaking out about “conservative representation” on campus.
The Oklahoma University chapter of the American Association of University Professors put out a statement in support of the TA:
Essentially, nothing is new here. OU claims without providing any supporting or specific reasons why Mel Curth was removed. They have claimed in the past in press releases that this was due to supposed and disturbing claims of “religious discrimination” that clash with academic freedom. Is it now? Instead, they hide behind vague statements and essentially assertions of “trust us”. At this point, they need to show us and not tell us. And once again, OU is making an employment decision public, which is inflaming the situation.
I live in Europe now, but all my academic friends from back in the states where I’m from fucking hates working for football schools once nil started
They started getting budget cuts and shit instantly
A lot of American schools are going to be killed by private equity trying to turn college football into the NFL
once nil started
The only difference between before and after nil, is that after nil the money is openly going to the players, where before it’s known that some players were getting paid under the table. Not like directly handing them cash (though that did happen), but like they’ll get a new car, their family’s financial situation is given much needed relief, that sort of thing.
Well, and that I guess the amount being thrown around was likely a lot less back then so that the NCAA wouldn’t be too attentive to it.
But really, it was a public secret that all the under the table paying the players was happening before nil came around and made it all get put out in the open.
Money was thrown around before,
But the amount thrown around now is in another stratosphere.
All the journalism I’ve seen in the matter is that schools are entering and arms raise where they’re getting billionaire donors and using student money to fund a arms raise of rapidly increasing nil contracts.
It kinda looks like a bubble as schools race to overpay go get records and into the playoffs to get into the SEC or big 10 so they can get TV deals and survive the eventual super conference that will be formed
NFL but the athletes don’t get paid.
No they get paid now
Millions
It’s why for instance jmu needs to keep increasing their “athletics fee”
No they get paid now
Millions
Amerikkkans have no middle ground between basically slavery and this.
This is the economy
But the reality is these kids should have been getting paid before
None of the issues arise from kids getting paid
It’s more so starts in the late 80s when the university of Oklahoma sued the NCAA In supreme court case over university athletics broadcast rights
OU won and since then athletic conferences have been condensing and forming into super leagues trying to rival the NFL
I did a post-doc at one of the schools that’s supposed to be both a really good school and a really good football school, and yeah I can confirm that it fucking sucks to work there. Even at an R1, sports comes first for basically all admins (and many students).
I left my previous American university and fled to Europe once history was beginning to be cut and because I’m trans I predicted all this shit happening
This one hurts. Not even an obvious op to deliberately fail an assignment can bring people to their senses.
A prediction: the University of Oklahoma will continue to be used as a punching bag by right wing psychos, to the point of losing funding. One of the lessons of the last few years is that appeasement never works.
They got their sights on Texas Tech and Texas A&M too.
A university’s entire job is to manage their reputation, and this is the choice they made.
Like, they’re a university. Fascists will always hate them because they see themselves as the only arbiters of truth. Nothing is true unless a conservative says so!
Congratulations, she gets what she wanted AND gets to play martyr something chuds will do regardless.
“University of Oklahoma” didn’t start with a spotless reputation… It sounds like an oxymoron
Genuinely sounds like it should be a school for cows
Football schools are moving away from being schools and are trying to become NFL teams
In 10 years all American universities will be sports franchises with a side hustle in pay-to-win “education”
No half will be sports, half will be hedge funds
I love that if you’re an Amerikkkan white bread kid, you can say the most objectively wrong shit and they’ll be rewarded as if they were right. Trash tier shithole country.
Writing “Jebus told me this” at the end of every exam paper, so that if they don’t give me full marks I can sue for religious discrimination
Since 2007 until now any school that is a major football school IMHO has a nearly worthless degree.
They’re more focused on football and will cut classes, raise tuition, etc for football reasons.
It why I think schools should not longer be associated with what are now basically professional sports teams.
But the things is, this is basically all the schools in the south and Midwest other than like 10 schools.
It’s a part of why education in red states suck so much.
In blue states like Massachusetts, California, etc schools are still primarily for education.
Every fucking school in the south other than like vandi, rice, duke, and some other ELITE southern schools that only the super lucky or wealthy get into are just football.
It’s 100% making people in the south and Midwest stupider and when ou cuts classes for football, fires teachers for football, raises tuitions for football, can’t afford to keep dorms livable because football needs a new stadium and weight room and training facilities.
These college teams have more expensive training facilities than NFL teams, paid for by the tuition of people trying to get an education
Virginia is the only state with laws where schools aren’t allowed to hide that tuition money is going to sports and you see schools there charge their students like $5000 for “athletic fees”
Imagine what ou, OSU, Michigan, Texas, etc are taking out of the tuition students pay for football instead of school.
If you go to Texas, you are taking out student loans so arch manning can get paid millions of dolal by the school to be mid at football
If you go to ole miss you’re paying student loans for lane kiffins sexy snap chat leaks to come out and then leave after one year
If you go to Michigan you are paying fucking student loans for that disaster
10 years from now degrees from these schools will be useless as Chinese schools surpass 99% of American schools in global rankings, and more and more stories come out about how college football is destroying academics
to be fair, our universities are also real estate scams :)
That’s bigger with private schools like Harvard or yale which are hedge funds
It’ll be compounded because I also predict ~15-20 years from now the pool of available football players will dry up significantly, especially outside of the south/midwest. My peers are starting to have kids and the one thing we all seem to agree on is we’re not letting our kids play football, and that’s in a midwest city.
I also predict my generation to be a lot less supportive of our kids taking out stupid high loans to go to a worthless school “just because.”
IDK,
Most football players come from rural communities in the deep South and some in the Midwest, but primarily from the deep south.
Plus football is moving for towards flag football for minors. The NFL is investing big in flag football for men and women at the Olympics and at a youth level.
Which I’m for I think flag football for kids is good and fun.
I wonder what age they’ll start doing contact. I would guess high school at the latest. I can’t speak for others but personally I wouldn’t even want my kid to start with flag football if I’d have to make them quit when they got to high school.
I have no problem with flag football in general but I’d hate to get my kid into an activity when I know I’ll have to pull the rug from under them once it starts getting serious.
They’re also pushing highschool flag
I think in rural communities you’ll have a lot of kids doing contact
But in urban and suburban you’ll have a mix of flag and contact
So in your view, only private schools like Duke and Vandi can be classified as worthwhile institutions whereas public ones like Michigan and Texas can’t because of football and being easily influenced by the government.
Just because OU is a shit school doesn’t mean every other school that isn’t part of the ivy league cabal is.
A) duke and vandi were mentioned because they are both currently big teams in power 4 conferences. Duke just won the acc, vandi’s QB was in the running for the Heisman.
B) neither duke or vandi are ivy league schools
C) I don’t think that schools that only ivy league schools count as good education. I never said that you’re straw manning me. My comment was about how major sec and big 10 schools are choosing football over education and it’s ruining their reputation as academic insiutuons.
This isn’t the first time football has ruined the reputation of the academics of schools. The University of Chicago in the late 1800s and 1900s was at points a dynasty in college football. Then the dean shut down the program instead focusing on academics.
Chicago is now in the same level of ivy Leagues and has a tier 3 football program.
Major Public schools on the north east and west coast which do not prioritize football like those in the south and Midwest do not have this problem.
I went to a university of California for a few years, those are excellent schools that choose academics over sports.
This is an issue WITH MAJOR FOOTBALL SCHOOLS
They are not investing in education, getting caught in constant bad press, and are cutting programs
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/17/university-of-texas-cuts-liberal-arts
http://amp.thestate.com/news/local/education/article306055871.html
It’s not just ou cutting academic shit. These schools can afford to pay billions a year in new football stadiums coaches get paid millions Players get paid millions
Tuition is rising
But programs are being cut
All while shit like this
https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/lane-kiffin-suffers-damaging-accusation-174627431.html
Lane kiffin is getting paid $13 million a year in student tuition while his dms of him cheating on his wife gets leaked on Snapchat
HOW THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THAT MAKES LSU AND OLE MISS LOOK?
(https://lailluminator.com/2025/03/28/lsu-moves-toward-hiring-freeze-budget-cuts-amid-federal-funding-uncertainty/ lsu is also cutting back on education btw, but they can pay lane kiffin millions)
Look I’m a historian who studies sports and way to autistic about football I think way to much about this stuff I can argue all day about this
I left my previous university because it was starting to invest more in sports and cut the history department when I was getting my degree.
This shit negatively impacts students and makes their degrees worth less
There is a reason why all the academic elite schools don’t invest in sports anymore
Tldr get mad at the deans not me for wanting to turn their schools into NFL franchises because that’s worth more money than being a school
America moment
There is a reason why all the academic elite schools don’t invest in sports anymore
I’m sorry but you haven’t presented much in the way of hard evidence nor do you display a solid understanding of finances at some of these schools. Michigan and Texas are academically elite schools. Big football programs such as these earn enough revenue to support entire Athletic Deparments and it’s the smaller schools without succesful programs you should be targetting because they remain just as football obsessed Ie colleges such as duke and vandi.
You just seem to be going on a crusade a aginst big public schools, as long as they’re not in big blue states, conveniently forgetting the UCs are really big into football and are pretty fucking broke enough to divert tuition money into football
Virginia the one state that forces these school to disclose whether or not the money is going to sports, has seen a MASSIVE INCREASE in MANDATORY athletic fees which needs to paid by by EVERY FUCKING STUDENT.
At JMU a public school in Virginia, students are forced to pay $3,000 a year in Athletic fees for the college football program.
The only difference between the schools in virgina, which top the chart in most expensive athletic fees, and other major football schools is that virginia has a law making it illegal for schools to divert tuition to sports so they just charge thousands is mandatory athletic fees.
I’m currently at a top university in Europe that has sporting facilities with multiple fields, a swimming pool, basketball courts, raketball courts, track fields, rugby fields, and a stadium. Student athletic fees for my university is less than a thousand euros.
The $3000 athletic fee is for the football team
It is common knowledge these schools spend tuition money on football. Thats why there were multiple bills proposed and passed in the Virginia state legislator in an attempt to stop it from happening. Instead schools are now doing athletic fees
https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20251/SB1217/text/SB1217
THE GOAL IS TO TURN THESE SCHOOLS INTO BRANDS/ PROFESSION SPORTS TEAMS.
The elite private schools are hedge funds
The deans of these schools want to condense college football into one or two conferences and have the valuation of their sport franchises become as valuable as NFL teams.
They are sacrificing the quality of the education of their schools to make more money.
I don’t have any bias against any schools, I am mad that the sport of college football is being destroyed and the education thousands of students are getting is being devalued because deans and athletic directors want to make money
This isn’t also the first time something like this has happened to American education
It happened in the 30s when the ivy league and northern schools ditched football in the early 1900s-1930s to favor academics and become hedgefunds.
Then in the 60s the elite southern schools left the football conferences to try to copy harvard and yale and Chicago. IT worked for Tulane, Rice, and Duke.
We’re seeing the result of the 1981 OU vs NCCA Supreme court decision of schools being able to sell college football themselves to TV studios, the consolidation of football programs into super programs, and the result NIL leading to some schools become monopolies in college football. They think they can be the NFL with their football programs worth billions.
Virginia is not a football money maker, though. They have a shitty program that is in the upper echelon of competition and yet doesn’t attract many eyes. They’re exactly the sort of school I’m talking about. I don’t think Michigan has athletic fees.
They do have fees,
And if you re read my comment,
The virginia schools lead in athletics fees because they passed a law where tuition can’t go to sports
Michigan and other schools just spend tuition money on sports
I literally posted an article and the link to the state law from Virginia
But you don’t have any evidence that they do besides Virginia, with bad football revenue streams, do; am I mistaken?
*She’s not wrong. I went to a public university, they spent the lions share of their budget on top heavy non academic staff, football, and the business school. Everything else was being allowed to wither.
Stem and buisness Brainrot is also a factor for schools
There is this idea that
Stem and business = job
so people register for those in the highest numbers
and the other academic fields get less people to sign up and get budget cuts
the right and the deans and people donating to these schools want to turn universities into trade schools for stem and business.
But that’s a smaller factor than football. Collegefootball is a major economic factor worth billions not just for these schools but the towns they reside in. so many of these towns the entire economy isn’t the school but college football.
They’re not wrong.
*She’s.
This isn’t even recognizable to what she said. I encourage you to reread the comment.
I think I made it pretty clear I’m not a fan of how sec and big 10 are treating these schools
It’s less of an issue in the big 12 and acc
Acc is marketing itself as the conference with “high academic standards” and is gonna fall apart in 10 years anyway
Big 12 can’t ever compete
Then college football will go from power 4 to power 2
Did you reply to the wrong comment?
No I am agreeing with you
Oh okay, my bad. I could follow your initial comment more or less but I just don’t know much about competitive sports so I got lost reading the other comments.
That’s not a good faith reading imo
This is what happens when your country opens department of war and dismantles department of education. It will only get dumber
Soooooo University of Oklahoma degrees are pretty much worthless now, right?
No they used to have some pretty good meteorology department and some other shit that was world class.
But that won’t matter in 10 years when their reputation is in the toilet
This has got to be so demoralizing for the students in that class who actually gave a shit and tried.
Their degrees will be useless in 10 years when it’s revealed half their 30k tuition goes to football and more programs are cut in the school
I legitimately think all big 10, sec, and big 12 schools will have useless degrees in 10 years after nonstop media attention to how post nil and big 10 network football and school admins are ruining the academics of these schools in favor of football.
Acc schools will be fine because that conference is falling apart and schools like bc, gt, etc will 100% choose academics over football.
I didn’t even go to a major football school nor a school in the south and they were still making budget cuts to pour money into football. Hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for our team to lose most of their games. On top of that, the university was trying to buy up local real estate so they could build a new stadium.
Seriously fuck university administrators and fuck sportsball. Having a student job on campus that literally saves people’s lives yet operates on less than $1 million per year while multimillions were spent on a failing football program was radicalizing.
University sports were not a problem like this until the 80s when the Reagan administration and supreme court gave way in a ruling with ou vs the NCAA over broadcast rights
After that unis could make insane money off sports
We’re seeing monopolization and the NCAA being destroyed
This is just another result of deregulation and monopolization we’re seeing in America
The NCAA was founded over 100 years ago by the founders of the sport of football and teddy Roosevelt as a regulatory org and then the neoliberal 80s began to kill its power.
Schools 100% could have sports and academics and shit,
But that would require regulation which isn’t gonna happen
In a just world, Fulnecky would have to write a 300 page dissertation on gender theory while in a bomb vest that explodes if she goes to ChatGPT or any other LLM.
Can we just start her off with having to write a complete sentence that a ten year old couldn’t write?
The Chinese long march was walked one footstep at a time.
From each according to their means…
In a just world, Fulnecky would have
to write a 300 page dissertation on gender theory while ina bomb vest that explodesif she goes to ChatGPT or any other LLM.First Reformed but instead of climate change, they get radicalized by the ABCs.
Only gets food and water during the process if she can name a source she’s citing today.
Clown college lmao
Affirmative action but for white morons.
University of Oklahoma is finished then, there’s alot of normies out there who were disgusted by this blatant right-wing slander operation, the blood is in the water and the right-wing sharks will swarm that campus looking for their own little grift
What utter pieces of shit
Probably emblematic of how scared universities are after Trump fucked with academic funding. Admin decided to put on a show of obsequiousness to avoid getting hit with something worse, at the cost of whatever international reputation the psych program at University of Oklahoma had. Can’t imagine anyone from the sane parts of the world wanting to host a conference there now.
There were threats to withdraw funding for not cracking down on Palestinian supporters. The universities did the crackdowns on their students. Then their funding got cut anyway.
Liberals are fucking cowards who think they can reason with reactionaries as if reactionaries won’t murder them once they know they can get away with it.
There are definitely enough examples of it not being an effective strategy that you’d think they’d stop pre-emptively surrendering, but who knows, maybe there’s enough reactionary private donors that they they still think there’s a way to placate to victory.
International? Nobody across liberal America will ever take it seriously again if a no confidence vote isn’t held on the president by the faculty union ASAP, and the leadership team is forced out.
I doubt that level of response given the milquetoast grumbling so far, so OU has just placed itself in the same category as private for profit Christian schools in terms of reputation as far as I, and plenty of others in positions where it matters, are concerned.
And yes yes, I am a
Yeah, I don’t know how seriously UO’s program was being taken before but I would be pissed if I had a degree with their name on it right now.
Force your universities to churn out pure imbeciles, what could go wrong
Me sending my heirs to uni in ck3
