The firing of a Texas professor and subsequent resignation of the university’s president are illustrating a statewide battle on when and how LGBTQ topics are discussed on college campuses.
State lawmakers say what the Texas A&M lecturer did was illegal, opponents say academics are losing their free speech rights and at least one other college in the state is trying to preemptively avoid political fire by banning LGBTQ discussions in classrooms.
Brian Evans, president of the Texas conference of the American Association of University Professors, said the ousters are “very difficult to see because it creates a chilling effect for other faculty who want to make sure that their students have the ability to discuss the topics that the students want to discuss. So to have to play censorship, that certain topics can’t be taught in a class, especially those that are related to the class, just seems a little bit strange, because students want to ask questions, want to explore ideas.”
It all began in an English course titled “Literature for Children” at Texas A&M and a summer session student recording a professor’s response to her objections to some of the course material.
Professor Melissa McCoul was sharing a graphic called a “gender unicorn” that demonstrates concepts of gender expressions, identity and sexuality while going over the class reading “Jude Saves the World,” a novel about a 12-year who comes out as nonbinary, according to The Texas Tribune.
“I just have a question, because I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching,” the student said in the video, citing executive orders from President Trump. There was little back and forth before the professor kicked the student out of the class.
The video went viral early in the fall semester after it was reposted by Republican state Rep. Brian Harrison on X.
“CAUGHT ON TAPE,” Harrison said at the beginning of the thread. “TEXAS A&M STUDENT KICKED OUT OF CLASS AFTER OBJECTING TO TRANSGENDER INDOCTRINATION… and A&M President defends ‘LGBTQ Studies.’”
The other video showed then-A&M President Mark A. Welsh defending the inclusion of LGBTQ content in the classroom.
“Those people don’t get to pick who their clients are, what citizens they serve and they want to understand the issues affecting the people that they’re going to treat,” Welsh says in it. “So there is a professional reason to teach some of these courses.”
Soon after the video went viral and criticism mounted from Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott, McCoul was fired; she is now suing the university.
The backlash became so intense Welsh also stepped down as president.
“There’s several different theories about gender that could be discussed maybe, but the professor did not do that. She said to the student, ‘I have an opinion. If you don’t agree with my opinion, you can leave the class.’ And that’s not open inquiry, that’s not academic freedom, that’s indoctrination,” said Sherry Sylvester, distinguished senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
But it seems the incident has spooked at least one other college in the state.
Angelo State University, a public school in San Angelo, is putting policies in place removing LGBTQ content and discussions from classrooms. Professors are not allowed pronouns in their email signatures and cannot refer to students by a preferred name different from their legal one.
“Angelo State University is a public institute of higher education and is therefore subject to both state and federal law, executive orders and directives from the President of the United States, and executive orders and directives from the Governor of Texas. As such, Angelo State fully complies with the letter of the law,” a spokesperson for the university said in a statement.
But even Harrison, the state legislator who advocated for the A&M professor to be fired, acknowledges there is no law preventing such topics in a college classroom.
“The governor and lieutenant governor and speaker have been telling everybody for two years now that we passed bans on DEI and transgender indoctrination in public universities,” Harrison previously said in an interview on a conservative radio program. “The only little problem with that? It’s a complete lie. … The state of Texas — despite what the governor said in his tweet yesterday, that this is a violation of law — there is no state law that we passed.”
Angelo State in its statement pointed to Trump’s executive order that declared there were only two immutable genders, prohibited the federal government from messages containing “gender ideology” and demanded gendered facilities such as bathrooms are based on biological sex.
It also pointed to a letter from Abbott declaring the state only recognizes two sexes and all Texas agencies should have policies that align with that.
Texas has been one of the lead states fighting LGBTQ and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in schools, recently passing a law that bans DEI initiatives at the K-12 district level, leading some schools to get rid of their clubs for LGBTQ students, according to Houston Public Media.
Others argue this is a moment communities, faculty and students need to step up and push back on attacks of free speech.
“These policies are being rolled out aren’t necessarily coming directly from the government. They’re sort of indirectly coming from government pressure. But then institutions of higher learning or private businesses are making decisions to comply with these mandates that are above and beyond the letter of the law. So I think it is vital in this moment that professors, faculty students in these systems, make their voices heard,” said Jonathan Gooch, communications director for Equality Texas.
“These policies are made very quickly. These decisions about what will happen to professors are made very quickly. And it’s important that the leadership of universities understand that their communities and the world is watching. So I would say it’s important for people in those spaces to speak up when these issues come up. And outside of that, obviously we have to vote with our conscience and vote in people who believe in the freedom of speech,” Gooch added.
