COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M University System regents on Thursday required professors to receive approval from the school president to discuss some race and gender topics, tightening rules months after a viral video of a student confronting an instructor over her lessons threw the flagship campus into upheaval.
The new policy will apply to all 12 schools within the system, including at Texas A&M, the flagship campus that is one of the largest universities in the country.
The new policy states that no academic course “will advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” unless approved in advance by a campus president.
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.
Critics of the new policy say it would impede the ability of faculty to teach, undermine academic freedom and could be a violation of First Amendment rights.
“It really strikes at the heart of what education means and what universities do, which is circulate the exchange of knowledge without fear of retaliation, without fear censorship,” Rana Jaleel, chair of the American Association of University Professors’ committee on academic freedom, said about the A&M system’s new policy.
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Various universities and their presidents around the country, including Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Virginia, have come under increased scrutiny this year from conservative critics and the administration of President Donald Trump over diversity, equity and inclusion practices and the schools’ responses to campus protests.
Last month, Trump asked nine major universities, including the University of Texas at Austin, to agree to various provisions, including commitments to eliminate race and sex from admissions decisions, to accept the government’s strict binary definition of “man” and “woman” and to promote conservative views on campus.
The new policy defines “race ideology” as a “concept that attempts to shame a particular race or ethnicity, accuse them of being oppressors in a racial hierarchy or conspiracy” or assigns “them intrinsic guilt based on the actions of their presumed ancestors or relatives.” The policy defines “gender ideology” as a “concept of self-assessed gender identity replacing and disconnected from the biological category of sex.”
“The goal is transparent and document cocurricular review, not policing individual speech,” James Hallmark, vice chancellor for the Texas A&M University System’s Office of Academic Affairs, told the regents.
In approving the policy, regents did not refer to 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. He did not offer a reason for stepping down but he and the school had faced political pressure and criticism, including from Abbott, after the video was posted on social media.
Leonard Bright, president of the American Association of University Professors A&M chapter, said he believes McCoul’s case opened the door for the university system to put this policy in place.
“Our job is to teach facts, teach the truth, and if … we have to use a litmus test of whether or not it meets someone’s approval, and it could be quite frankly their political approval, then we have no truth,” Bright, who is a professor at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, told the AP ahead of the meeting.
During Thursday’s meeting, eight Texas A&M professors and instructors, including Bright, spoke against the policy, with many calling on regents to rehire McCoul.
Two A&M professors spoke in favor of the policy, including Adam Kolasinski, with the Department of Finance, who said he didn’t believe the policy violated academic freedom and that “academic freedom does not mean you get to teach whatever you want.”
Regent Sam Torn said the policy was being put in place to “make sure we are educating, not advocating.”
A Texas law took effect on Sept. 1 that forbids Texas K-12 schools from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity. The law does not apply to universities and other institutions of higher education.
Texas A&M is located in College Station, about 95 miles (153 kilometers) northwest of Houston.
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