Melissa McCoul, the Texas A&M University professor who was criticized by a student for discussing gender identity, has been fired.
Her firing follows the removal of the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Mark Zoran, and the head of the English department, Emily Johansen, from their administrative positions. McCoul is appealing and considering her legal options.
During the summer, a student in McCoul’s children’s literature class objected to the professor’s assertion that there are more than two genders. The student said this is illegal because of Donald Trump’s executive order saying the federal government recognizes only male and female genders, as assigned at birth, therefore denying the existence of transgender, nonbinary, or intersex people. The student also said her religious sensibilities were offended by McCoul’s comments. The exchange was recorded on cell phone video.
Texas A&M President Mark Welsh announced Monday that the dean and department head would be removed from those positions, while it’s unclear if they’ll continue as faculty, but a recording reported to be between him and the student had him saying McCoul would not be fired. However, he released a statement Tuesday saying she had been terminated, effective immediately. He did not name McCoul, but other sources have identified her as the professor in question.
The reason he gave was not specifically about gender issues but that the course material differed from the description in the catalog. After finding out that the class “contained content that did not align with any reasonable expectation of standard curriculum for the course,” he “made it clear to our academic leadership that course content must match catalog descriptions for each and every one of our course sections,” he said in the statement.
“However, I learned late yesterday that despite that directive, the college continued to teach content that was inconsistent with the published course description for another course this fall,” he continued. Because of that, he told the university provost to terminate McCoul and ordered deans and department heads to make sure course material aligns with published descriptions, he wrote.
Republican politicians in Texas, including state Rep. Brian Harrison and Gov. Greg Abbott, had called for McCoul to be fired. Harrison termed McCoul’s discussion “transgender indoctrination” and urged the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the matter, which the DOJ says it’s doing. Glenn Hegar, chancellor of the Texas A&M System, which oversees Texas A&M’s main campus and 11 other universities, said he “will work with the Board of Regents to make certain that the A&M System takes the disciplinary action to ensure this does not happen again at one of our campuses.”
McCoul is fighting back. Amanda Reichek, her attorney, told The Texas Tribune that the professor’s course content aligned with the descriptions, and she had never been directed to alter anything. She had taught the children’s literature course for several years, and there had been no problems, Reichek said. So McCoul is appealing her termination and may take legal action.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which advocates for free speech across the political spectrum, issued a statement denouncing McCoul’s firing. “After a video of a student complaining about discussions of gender identity in a Texas A&M ‘Literature for Children’ class went viral, Governor Greg Abbott demanded on X that Texas A&M President Mark Welsh fire Professor Melissa McCoul for the content of her course. Welsh promptly announced that McCoul had been terminated,” said FIRE Director of Campus Rights Advocacy Lindsie Rank.
“The message from Texas is alarming: Professors teach at the mercy of those in power, not under the protection of academic freedom or the First Amendment. In his statement, Welsh attempted to justify the firing by alleging McCoul taught ‘content that was inconsistent with the published course description.’ However, the current publicly available description of the course in Texas A&M’s Undergraduate Catalog is ‘Representative writers, genres, texts and movements.’ This is hardly inconsistent with a faculty member conducting a classroom discussion of gender identity in children’s literature.
“Further justifying his decision, Welsh wrote: ‘This isn’t about academic freedom; it’s about academic responsibility.’ Welsh’s attempt to wave aside Texas A&M’s binding legal obligation to uphold academic freedom does not excuse McCoul’s termination.
“This is not the first time Texas A&M leadership has ignored the law of the land in favor of viewpoint-based censorship. FIRE will continue to fight for the First Amendment rights of all Americans — regardless of political views — in Texas and across our nation.”
This article originally appeared on Advocate: Texas A&M professor fired over discussion of gender identity