The $25,000 Wrong Answer: Florida’s New School Loophole

Florida just put a price tag on ignorance. A new bill (SB 1006) would ban "academic penalties" for students who express religious or ideological beliefs in class—even if their answers are factually wrong.

If a teacher fails a student for citing the Bible on a biology test, they don't just face a complaint. They face a mandatory $25,000 lawsuit.

I’m Mike Smithgall, and in this episode, we look at how "sincerely held beliefs" are becoming a get-out-of-grading-free card, and why Florida is creating the ultimate participation trophy for the religious right.

Get more details in our companion article at Atheistville.com

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Transcript

Mike Smithgall 0:00

So Florida just solved the problem of failing students. Here's how it works: you walk into a science exam, and the question is explain the evidence for evolution through natural selection. You don't know the answer. You didn't study. So instead, you write, God created all living things in six days. Genesis 1.1. Your teacher marks it wrong because it is wrong. It doesn't answer the question. But under a new Florida bill, that teacher just made a $25,000 mistake. Because you didn't just fail a test, you expressed a sincerely held belief. And in Florida, that might be worth more than actually learning the material. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Mike Smithgall, the unelected mayor of Atheistville, and this is today's Mic Drop. To understand what's happening in Florida right now, you have to go back to late 2025 and the University of Oklahoma. A junior named Samantha Fulnicky is taking a psychology course called Lifespan Development. The assignment is straightforward. Read a peer-reviewed article on gender norms and mental health, then write a response engaging with that research. She didn't do that. Instead, she wrote an essay citing the Bible. She argued that the concept of multiple genders was demonic. She didn't engage with the study, she didn't respond to the prompt, she preached. The teaching assistant gave her a zero. Not because she was Christian, but because she didn't answer the question. If you don't do the assignment, you fail the assignment. That's how school works. But Fulnicki cried religious discrimination. And did the administration stand up and fight the good fight and protect academic integrity? Um, no. They suspended the instructor and fell all over themselves apologizing. That was a signal flare. Conservative lawmakers across the country saw that and thought, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. We can legislate this. And Florida said, hey, hold my beer. There is a bill sitting in the Florida legislature right now, SB 1006 in the Senate and HB 835 in the House. These bills haven't passed yet. They're still in committee. But the fact that they exist at all should tell you something. All right, the long title is the Florida Student and School Personnel First Amendment and Religious Liberties Act. It's a mouthful. But whenever you see a bill with the words Liberty and First Amendment in the title, you should probably check your wallet. And in this case, check your kid's report card. Here's the pitch. Schools can't apply any academic penalty to students for expressing their religious, political, or ideological beliefs in coursework. Now, on the surface, that sounds actually quite reasonable. If a kid writes an essay arguing for lower taxes, a teacher shouldn't fail them just for disagreeing politically. We all get that. That's already a standard. But the bill isn't protecting kids from bias, it's protecting wrong answers. So here's the key language. A student cannot be penalized if the assignment requires a student's viewpoint to be expressed. I'm going to read that one more time, just because I want you to hear it. A student cannot be penalized if the assignment requires a student's viewpoint to be expressed. Think about what that covers. History requires interpretation. Literature requires analysis. Civics requires perspective. Biology involves understanding evidence-based conclusions. So if a student writes that the Civil War isn't about slavery, or that evolution is a hoax, or that vaccines contain microchips, and the teacher marks that down for being factually incorrect, that teacher just opened the door to a lawsuit. And we're not talking about a slap on the wrist or a note that goes in their personnel file. We're talking about $25,000 payout. Now let me walk you through how this works because the financial incentive is the entire ball game here. The bill creates what's called a private cause of action. That's legal speak for students can sue the school district directly if they think their grade was lowered because of their beliefs. And the payout isn't symbolic. The law mandates statutory punitive damages between $15,000 and $25,000 plus attorney fees. And this is important. The state explicitly waives sovereign immunity, which means school districts can't claim they're protected from these lawsuits. So let's play this out. You're a high school science teacher. You got 30 papers to grade on evolution. 29 kids write about natural selection, and one kid writes about Adam and Eve. You know the answer is wrong. It didn't engage with the curriculum. It doesn't demonstrate understanding of the material. By any objective academic standard, it deserves to fail. But now you're doing the math. If you give that kid an F, they might sue. And even if the district fights it and wins, they've spent tens of thousands on legal fees. If they lose, it's $25,000 plus costs. So what are you gonna do? You're gonna pass them. Not because they earned it, not because they learned anything at all, but because failing them is the financial liability. That's not protecting free speech. That's creating a bounty system for bad answers. All right, quick pause. If you haven't subscribed yet, I would love to have you join the community here at Atheistville. I realize that some of you will fundamentally disagree with me, but my hope is that you value open discussion and you appreciate different perspectives presented without yelling and screaming and name-calling. And do me a favor, leave a comment. I read every one, even the ones that are intended to rile me up. But again, if you value respectful discussion, I am happy to engage with you. And if ultimately we walk away friends and agree to disagree, that's fantastic. Oh, and hey, one more thing. If you think someone else may have an opinion on this subject, share this with them. We need to have more calm discussions on important issues. All right, let's get back to it. Now, here's what kills me about this. The people pushing this bill, Senator Yarborough and Representative Barrero, they love to talk about merit. They hate participation trophies, they want accountability in schools. But look at what they're actually building. This is the ultimate participation trophy. It says you don't have to be right, you don't have to demonstrate knowledge, you don't even have to try, you just have to invoke belief. And it doesn't apply evenly. If a secular student writes a lazy essay, they fail. They've got no legal recourse. But if a religious student writes the same lazy essay and sprinkles in some Bible verses, suddenly they're a protected class with a legal shield. No reasonable person would see that as fairness. It's preferential treatment with a price tag attached. Now I want to be clear about something. Obviously, teachers shouldn't discriminate based on a viewpoint. If a student writes a well-argued conservative opinion in a history class and the teacher fails them just because they disagree politically, that's wrong. It's clearly wrong. I will absolutely support you if you say that's wrong. We all agree on that. But that's already the case. That's the way the rules already work. This bill isn't solving that problem. It's creating a new one. It's telling students that ideology can substitute for accuracy. And once you do that, education stops being about learning and starts being about litigation. Think about the long-term cost here. What's a Florida high school diploma gonna be worth in 10 years? If I'm a college admissions officer in another state and I see a transcript from a Florida public school, I have to wonder, did this kid actually earn that A in biology, or they just threatened to sue until the teacher gave up? We're not protecting students here. We're devaluing their education to score points and a culture war. And the people who get hurt the most are the kids themselves. We're teaching them that facts are negotiable, that evidence doesn't matter as much as confidence, that the legal system is a tool you use to bully your way past accountability. That might work in a Florida classroom in 2026, but it doesn't work where they go to college. It doesn't work in the job market, and it doesn't work in the real world where being wrong still has consequences. All right, that's my two cents, unblessed and unfiltered as always. Agree or disagree, but that's what I've got for you today. Look, at the end of the day, this comes down to one simple idea. Education only works when answers matter. Once belief overrides evaluation, the whole system just falls apart and we all lose. You can support free expression without sabotaging academic standards, and you can support religious liberty without turning a classroom into a courtroom. These bills haven't passed yet, they're still sitting in committee, but the fact that they even exist at all should worry you. Because once you put a dollar amount on being wrong, wrong becomes profitable. And that's not a system anyone should want. I'm Mike SmithGo, and I'll catch you on the next one. Hey, thanks for tuning in. I really hope you enjoyed that. Make sure you like and subscribe. That really does help us and it lets us bring you more conversations from beyond belief. And don't forget to go to atheistville.com. I almost always have an article that kind of fleshes out what we just talked about, and it also includes any of the links we may have mentioned. So make sure you go there and check that out as well. And in the meantime, take care and remember that reason and compassion go a very, very long way.