Texas A&M ends women’s studies program amid policy on race and gender

Body

Texas A&M University will end its women’s and gender studies program and revise course syllabuses across the school under a new policy that limits how professors can discuss some race and gender topics, the university announced Friday.

Interim President Tommy Williams said the university’s process included “strong oversight and standards” aimed at protecting “academic integrity” and assuring that a Texas A&M degree “means something” for students and employers. Williams also said he understood that the system’s changes had “been unsettling for many,” and he pointed to the university’s shared responsibility to its students.

The university said it began the changes after the Texas A&M University System regents approved the policy in November, followed by an extensive review of 5,400 courses. University officials said they sought to minimize disruption, including by allowing faculty to request exceptions for some affected classes.

Texas A&M said the six courses canceled for this semester represent 0.11% of its course offerings. The university said those cancellations involved classes in the Bush School of Government and Public Service, the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the College of Education and Human Development.

The university said it sent 54 courses to Williams after the review and that he granted 48 exceptions. Texas A&M also said the decision to end the women’s and gender studies program was based in part on limited student interest in the program.

Faculty and students, however, said the policy is limiting classroom freedom. Hundreds of people gathered on campus Thursday evening to protest the changes, after weeks of controversy that included a viral video of a confrontation between a student and an instructor over course lessons.

Leonard Bright, president of the American Association of University Professors’ Texas A&M chapter, said the university had reduced the “marketplace of ideas” by emphasizing a “certain view” on race, gender and sexuality, which he said he believed was “quite literally erasing the experiences of people of color” and the LGBTQ+ community.

Bright said a graduate-level ethics course he teaches was canceled under the policy, and he said the university’s assurances were not preventing fear among faculty. He described what he called a “chilling message” to professors that teaching these topics could lead to consequences, including job loss, for those addressing subject matter that some conservatives disagree with.

Martin Peterson, a philosophy professor, told protesters that the policy would limit what he could teach, including certain writings from Plato. Williams, in earlier comments, said the university was not banning Plato.

The policy at Texas A&M has been tied to prior disciplinary action involving race and gender instruction. In September, Melissa McCoul, a senior lecturer in the English department, was fired after a video became public showing her arguing with a female student over gender identity being taught in a children’s literature class; McCoul’s termination was followed by the resignation of then-president Mark A. Welsh III.

Republican state Rep. Brian Harrison, who has criticized Texas A&M, applauded the program’s end in a post on the social media site X. Harrison wrote that he was proud to deliver “another massive conservative victory” for taxpayers against what he called “transgender indoctrination,” while Texas A&M is located in College Station, about 95 miles (153 kilometers) northwest of Houston.