Texas A&M Professors Need Approval To Talk About Race And Gender

Apparently, Republicans are all about safe spaces these days. Earlier this year, Texas A&M University fired a professor for teaching “improper gender ideology.” As a result of that firing, Texas A&M University System regents announced that professors must now seek approval from the school president to discuss any topic related to race and gender. 

According to AP, this is the first time a public university in Texas will dictate what a professor can and can’t teach. The new rule will apply to all 12 campuses in the Texas A&M system, including Texas A&M proper, which is one of the biggest public universities in Texas. 

Under the new policy, no academic course taught at Texas A&M can “advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.” So if you teach at Texas A&M, make sure you don’t express such controversial ideas like “trans people exist” or “racism is bad, actually.” 

The new rule is the latest fallout from a viral video that showed a student confronting former Texas A&M Melissa McCoul. McCoul was teaching a children’s literature course when the subject of gender identity came up. “This also very much goes against not only myself but a lot of people’s religious beliefs. And so I am not going to participate in this because it’s not legal and I don’t want to promote something that is against our president’s laws as well as against my religious beliefs,” the student could be heard saying in the video.

“If you are uncomfortable in this class, you do have the right to leave. What we are doing is not illegal,” McCoul replied.

It’s crazy how Republicans spent so long whining about safe spaces and have raised kids who can’t deal with hearing ideas that challenge their preconceived notions of gender. 

The video predictably spurred outrage among Texas Republicans who claim to be pro-free speech, but have continually tried to censor what’s taught in both K-12 schools and higher education. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott demanded that McCoul, an educator with over a decade of experience, be fired from her job. 

After some initial pushback, McCoul was eventually fired, and Glenn Hegar, the chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, ordered an audit of the courses taught at all 12 campuses. Former Texas A&M President Mark Welsh resigned from his position after intense Republican pressure due to his initial reluctance to fire McCoul. 

The policy received mixed reception from Texas A&M professors. “Our job is to teach facts, teach the truth, and if … we have to use a litmus test of whether or not it meets someone’s approval, and it could be quite frankly their political approval, then we have no truth,” Leonard Bright, a professor at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, told the AP ahead of the meeting. 

Bright and seven other Texas A&M professors spoke out against the policy during the meeting and called for McCoul to be rehired. Regent Sam Torn defended the policy, saying it was being put in place to “make sure we are educating, not advocating.”

Considering that these new policies are being put in place in response to pronounced Republican pressure, it sounds a lot like advocacy to me. 

SEE ALSO:

Texas A&M President Resigns After Republican Pressure

Texas A&M Sued For Reverse Racism