A committee at Texas A&M determined that the university’s decision to dismiss a professor after a student was asked to leave class for objecting to a children’s literature lesson about gender identity was not justified.
A video, recorded earlier this year by a female student, showed her questioning Melissa McCoul, a senior lecturer within the English department, about the legality of teaching gender ideology. The student referenced President Donald Trump’s executive orders that sought to eliminate the subject from higher education.
The internal committee decided that the university did not follow the correct procedures and failed to demonstrate sufficient cause for McCoul’s termination. This week, the committee unanimously decided that “the summary dismissal of Dr. McCoul was not justified.”
The university released a statement indicating that interim President Tommy Williams has received the committee’s nonbinding recommendation and will make a decision after he reviews it.
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McCoul’s lawyer, Amanda Reichek, suggested the dispute will likely be settled in court because the university seems intent on continuing the fight, and the interim president is facing similar political pressures.
“Dr. McCoul asserts that the flimsy reasons proffered by A&M for her termination are a pretext for the University’s true motivation: capitulation to Governor Abbott’s demands,” Reichek stated.
Gov. Greg Abbott, along with other Republicans, had urged for her dismissal after viewing the video.
“Fire the professor who acted contrary to Texas law,” the governor posted on X in September.
The video sparked public criticism of university president Mark Welsh, who later resigned, although he didn’t provide a reason and never mentioned the video in his resignation announcement.
State Rep. Brian Harrison stated to Fox News Digital at the time that the “liberal president of Texas A&M must be fired and all DEI and LGBTQ indoctrination defunded.”
The opening of the video, which Harrison posted on social media, featured a slide entitled “Gender Unicorn” that highlighted various gender identities and expressions.
Students in the class informed The Texas Tribune that they were discussing a book titled “Jude Saves the World,” about a middle school student who identifies as nonbinary. Several other books used in the course also touched on LGBTQ+ topics.
Following a debate regarding the legality of teaching lessons on gender identity, McCoul asked the student to leave the class. Harrison also posted other recordings of the student’s meeting with Welsh, where the then-university president defended McCoul’s teaching.
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Welsh stated, upon McCoul’s firing, that he learned she had continued to teach material in a children’s literature course “that did not align with any reasonable expectation of standard curriculum for the course.” He also mentioned that the course content was inconsistent with its catalog descriptions.
“If we allow different course content to be taught from what is advertised, we let our students down. When it comes to our academic offerings, we must keep our word to our students and to the state of Texas,” he said in September, noting that leaders in the College of Arts and Sciences had been found to have approved plans to continue teaching course content inconsistent with the course’s published description.
Earlier this month, the Texas A&M Regents established a new policy stating that no academic course “will advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” unless a campus president approves it beforehand.
Fox News Digital contacted Texas A&M for comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
