HOUSTON (AP) — Texas A&M University is ending its women’s and gender studies program, changing the syllabuses of hundreds of courses and canceling six classes as part of a new policy that limits how professors can discuss some race and gender topics, school officials announced Friday.
The changes to and cancellation of courses comes months after a viral video of a student confronting an instructor over her lessons threw Texas A&M, one of the largest universities in the country, into upheaval.
University officials tried to reassure the campus that the impacts of the new policy would be minimal, affecting only a small portion of the classes being offered and that class cancellations wouldn’t create any obstacles preventing students from staying on course to graduate.
“Strong oversight and standards protect academic integrity and restore public trust, guaranteeing that a degree from Texas A&M means something to our students and the people who will hire them,” Interim President Tommy Williams said in a news release. “That has been our focus through this process and will remain our focus as we move forward.”
But faculty and students, hundreds of whom gathered on campus Thursday evening to protest the changes being made under the new policy, have accused Texas A&M of infringing on academic and student freedom.
“They have reduced this marketplace of ideas to now emphasizing or promoting a certain view when it comes to race, gender, and sexuality. And that view is quite literally erasing the experiences of people of color, the LGBTQ+ community,” said Leonard Bright, president of the American Association of University Professors A&M chapter.
Friday’s announcement followed an extensive review by the university of 5,400 courses after the Texas A&M University System regents in November had approved the new policy.
Texas A&M said the six courses that were canceled represent only 0.11% of the courses offered this semester. They include courses 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 faculty were given the chance to request exceptions for some courses. Out of the 54 courses that were sent to Williams, he granted 48 exceptions.
Texas A&M said the decision to end the women’s and gender studies program was based in part on limited student interest in the program.
A&M said Friday that Williams would not be available for media interviews.
“I recognize that recent Texas A&M University System policy changes have been unsettling for many, and I understand your concerns. At the same time, our shared responsibility is clear: our students,” Williams said in a statement on Jan. 12.
The new policy appears to be the first time that a public university system in Texas has put in rules on what faculty can talk about in their classroom on the topics of race and gender. Other university systems in Texas have also placed restrictions on classroom instruction or have begun internal reviews of course offerings following a new state law.
Bright, whose graduate-level ethics course was canceled under the new policy, said that despite the university’s reassurances, the changes on campus are creating an atmosphere of fear where faculty have been censoring themselves and what they teach in order to avoid any problems.
“They sent out a chilling message to the faculty that we were engaging in woke ideology, and … that people were gonna be fired as a result of teaching these topics that some conservatives certainly disagree with,” said Bright, who is a professor at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service.
At Thursday’s campus protest, Martin Peterson, a philosophy professor at Texas A&M, said that under the new policy, he wasn’t being allowed to teach certain writings from Plato.
“No one can reasonably say that the philosophy professor shouldn’t get to teach Plato in a philosophy class. But that’s what’s happening,” Peterson said.
Williams said earlier that Texas A&M was not banning Plato.
The new policy at Texas A&M came after September’s firing of Melissa McCoul, a senior lecturer in the English department at Texas A&M University, after video was made public in which she argued with a female student over gender identity being taught in a children’s literature class. McCoul’s firing came after political pressure from Republican lawmakers, including Gov. Greg Abbott.
Shortly after McCoul’s termination, Texas A&M’s then president, Mark A. Welsh III, resigned.
Republican state Rep. Brian Harrison, who has been critical of Texas A&M, on Friday applauded the decision to end its women’s and gender studies program.
“After years of pressure and exposing that department’s woke agenda, I’m proud to have delivered yet another massive conservative victory for Texas taxpayers against transgender indoctrination!” Harrison said in a post on the social media site X.
Texas A&M is located in College Station, about 95 miles (153 kilometers) northwest of Houston.
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