Sept. 11 (UPI) — Texas A&M University has fired a professor and two administrators following a viral video shot by a student arguing a discussion about gender identity in her class might be illegal.
The university’s president, Mark Welsh III, announced the firing of Professor Melissa McCoul in a statement Wednesday.
The firings stem from a viral video posted online earlier this week of a student filming herself confronting McCoul seemingly during a discussion about gender and sexuality in children’s literature.
In the uncorroborated video, the female student references an executive order President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office recognizing only two genders defined at “conception.” She also references Trump administration moves to pause federal funding for schools that have policies that do not align with its own, including diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The video sparked backlash from Republicans, including Texas House Rep. Brian Harrison, who said he was provided the video from “Texas A&M whistleblower student” whom he said was allegedly kicked out of class “after she objected to persistent transgender and DEI indoctrination.”
On Tuesday, Welsh removed the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the head of the English Department over the incident.
In the Wednesday statement, he said he would not comment on McCoul’s firing, but explained the removal of the two university department heads.
He said the issue of the children’s literature course containing content that did not align with the course curriculum had been raised with leadership to whom he made clear that course content “must match catalog descriptions for each and every one of our course sections.”
“However, I learned late yesterday that despite that directive, the college continued to teach content that was inconsistent with the published description for another course this fall,” he said. “As a result, I took the above administrative actions, and deans and department heads will conduct an audit of course offerings to ensure they align with the course descriptions.”
“This isn’t about academic freedom; it’s about academic responsibility,” he added. “Our degree programs and courses go through extensive approval processes, and we must ensure that what we ultimately deliver to students is consistent with what was approved.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, had also called for McCoul’s firing.
Amanda Reichek, McCoul’s attorney, said McCoul is appealing her removal and they are exploring taking legal action, The Texas Tribune reported.
Reichek said the cause for McCoul’s dismissal was that she failed to change the content of her course to match what is in the course description. But the attorney contends the content of her course and its description align and that she wasn’t told to change her course content, which she has been teaching for years.
A publicly available description of the course, English 360: Children’s Literature, states it covers, “representative writers, genres, texts and movements.”
McCoul’s firing is also raising concerns among civil rights advocates.
Lindsie Rank, campus rights advocacy director for the Foundation for Individual Rights, told UPI in an emailed statement that the message Texas is sending professors with this firing is that “professors teach at the mercy of those in power, not under the protection of academic freedom or the First Amendment.”
Rank added that the description of the course available online is “hardly inconsistent with a faculty member conducting a classroom discussion of gender identity in children’s literature.”
“FIRE will continue to fight for the First Amendment rights of all Americans — regardless of political views — in Texas and across the nation.”
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