Professors at all 12 universities in the Texas A&M University system are now banned from teaching any material that contains “gender and race ideology” without the explicit approval of a university president, according to a news release. This new policy was unanimously voted in by the System’s Board of Regents on Nov. 13.
This change will affect at least 200 courses currently taught across the Texas A&M system, according to NPR.
The Texas A&M University system is an independent state university system which spans 12 university campuses and eight state agencies, per its website. It currently enrolls around 175,000 students.
Texas A&M’s System Policy Office 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, ascribe to them less value as contributors to society and public discourse because of their race or ethnicity, or assign them intrinsic guilt based on the actions of their presumed ancestors or relatives in other areas of the world.” Gender ideology is defined as “a concept of self-assessed gender identity replacing, and disconnected from, the biological category of sex.”
The policy also prohibits faculty from teaching material not on the preapproved course syllabus.
Joan Wolf, associate professor of sociology at Texas A&M University — the system’s flagship school located in College Station, Texas — voiced her disagreement with the policy changes before the Board, according to a recording of the meeting aired on NPR. “My job is not to teach you what to think,” she said. “I tell students, if you leave more confused than when you came in, I’ve done my job.”
“One could not, or at least should not, mistake explaining something, respecting it as a concept, for advocating something,” Wolf told The New York Times.
James R. Hallmark, the university system’s vice chancellor for academic affairs, denied that the new policies interfere with professors’ freedom to teach. “This does not diminish academic freedom,” he said in the same meeting, according to NPR. “It reinforces the balance between academic freedom and academic responsibility.”
This is not Texas A&M’s first instance prompting backlash from students and faculty over political interference in the classroom. In September, Texas A&M Professor of English Melissa McCoul was fired for acknowledging the existence of more than two genders in a children’s literature class. The university claimed McCoul was fired because “the content of her course did not match its catalog description,” according to The Texas Tribune. The Tribune reported that a committee of Texas A&M faculty recently found McCoul’s firing to have violated her academic freedom and university rules.
The new policy, however, will allow university administrators to fire professors on similar grounds.
Wolf emphasized the importance of bringing together disparate ideas in the classroom. “I want [students] to be uncomfortable in their certainty,” she told NPR. “That’s what education is.”
