The university now requires campus presidents to approve courses that "advocate" gender or race ideology and prohibits faculty from teaching material that is inconsistent with the approved syllabus for their course. Introducing controversial matters not connected with the class subject is also barred.
Regent Sam Torn says the policy change is to "make sure we are educating and not advocating."
Sherry Sylvester, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, likes the idea.
"Texas A&M took an important step in laying out precisely how classes need to be taught … making it very clear that you cannot advocate race or gender ideology," she summarizes. "You can't say that one race is superior to another or that one race is an oppressive race and another race is an oppressed race."
The original proposal stated instructors could not "teach" gender or race ideology and allowed campus presidents to delegate their review and approval authority.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) objected to that, stating it could "invite unlawful censorship" and vowing to defend any faculty member disciplined under the proposal.
Though it was revised November 12, swapping the word "teach" with "advocate" and saying campus presidents would not be able to delegate decision-making authority, FIRE still agrees with the professors who say it violates their academic freedom in the classroom.
Sylvester does not buy that argument.
"These academic people screaming about academic freedom were the same people that were requiring anybody who was to be interviewed for a job at the university to sign a statement pledging their fealty to DEI," she recalls. "These people don't care about freedom."
Curriculum reviews will reportedly be done every semester.
