Texas A&M University is axing gender- and race-related content as the school reviews its courses, telling professors they should not feature material that includes major plotlines involving gay and transgender characters in their core-curriculum classes. Professors intent on shoving radical gender ideology and LGBT material down their students’ throats are up in arms over the change.
At least 200 courses in the school’s College of Arts and Sciences have been flagged or axed by Texas A&M leaders as the university conducts a review of its course syllabi, faculty members told Inside Higher Ed. Faculty were reportedly instructed to submit core-curriculum syllabi as part of the review process.
The move comes just a few months after the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents decided that courses advocating “race or gender ideology, sexual orientation, or gender identity” would be subject to presidential approval.
One professor was asked to purge material involving feminism and queer cinema from their “History of Film” course. When the professor refused, university leaders resubmitted the syllabus to a “special topics” class, removing it from the school’s core-curriculum. Notably, “core-curriculum” refers to courses that students are forced to take in order to graduate with a bachelor’s degree, regardless of their chosen major.
Another professor was reportedly left dismayed upon receiving an email from Texas A&M’s department chair, telling him to either eliminate “modules on race and gender ideology” from his syllabus or be reassigned to teach a different philosophy course. Professor Martin Peterson, who teaches a class called “Contemporary Moral Problems,” expressed particular displeasure at being asked to remove Plato readings that “may include” modules on race and gender ideology.
“Your decision to bar a philosophy professor from teaching Plato is unprecedented,” Peterson wrote in an email — which he shared with Inside Higher Ed — replying to the school’s department chair.
The professor cited an excerpt from Plato’s Socratic dialogue Symposium, specifically from the speech of the comic playwright Aristophanes.
In the passage in question, Aristophanes says, “First, you should learn the nature of humanity — for in the first place there were three kinds of human being and not two as nowadays, male and female. No, there was also a third kind, a combination of both genders.”
Other Plato texts Peterson says were flagged reportedly address “patriarchy, masculinity, gender identity, and the human condition” — but it was not explicitly stated that the Greek philosopher was axed from core-curriculum course material altogether.
The philosophy professor ultimately decided to revise his syllabus and replace the gender-related material with lectures on free speech and academic freedom, Inside Higher Ed reported.
“I’m thinking of using this as a case study and assign some of the texts written by journalists covering the story to discuss,” Peterson told the newspaper.
Another class reportedly affected was one called “Introduction to Race and Ethnicity,” which ended up getting canceled after university leaders determined there was no way the sociology course could comply with the system’s policy.
However, professors up in arms over not being able to feature LGBTQ content or transgender propaganda in their courses were not completely shut down.
On Wednesday, senior executive associate dean of the college Cynthia Werner emailed English faculty members clarifying the guidelines.
“If a course includes eight books and only one has a main character who has an LGBTQ identity and the plot lines are not overly focused on sexual orientation (i.e. that is THE main plot line), I personally think it would be OK to keep the book in the course,” she said.
Werner also clarified that professors can assign textbooks with chapters that cover transgender identity, so long as they do not discuss the material in class or include it on assignments or exam questions.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.