getResource() is returning null with Gradle project

I'm aware there are several other questions regarding this...

• Class.getResource() returns null
• Java - class.getResource returns null
• Calling context.getResources() returns null
• getClassLoader().getResource(filepath) returns a null pointer

But my problems seems to be a bit different because I seem to have all of the necessary things to NOT have this problem.

The code:

 this.getClass().getResource("checkstyle_whitespace.xml"); // null

The issue is that I've verified my classpath by inspecting the class loader in the debugger. Here's what I am seeing:

 27 = {URL@1235} "file:/Users/dennis/Documents/Development/java/java-grader/build/classes/main/"
 28 = {URL@1236} "file:/Users/dennis/Documents/Development/java/java-grader/build/resources/main/"

Blow is a quick tree of my directory structure. See build/resources and src/main/resources. The files are being copied when gradle builds my project.

├── build
│   ├── classes
│   │   ├── main
│   │   │   └── javaGrader
│   │   └── test
│   │       └── javaGraderTest
│   └── resources
│       └── main
│           ├── checkstyle_whitespace.xml
│           └── grammars
├── src
│   ├── main
│   │   ├── java
│   │   │   └── javaGrader
│   │   └── resources
│   │       ├── checkstyle_whitespace.xml
│   │       └── grammars
│   └── test
│       ├── java
│       │   └── javaGraderTest
│       └── resources
│           └── mini_test
├── target
│   ├── classes
│   ├── generated-sources
│   │   └── annotations
│   └── generated-test-sources
│       └── test-annotations
└── test_assets

From what I understand, the files should be accessible because they're in build. Correct me if I am wrong...