Texas A&M committee finds professor’s firing over transgender-related lesson unjustified

A Texas A M committee ruled that the university s decision to fire a professor after a pupil was removed from class for objecting to a children s literature lesson on gender identity was unjustified A video recorded earlier this year by a female learner established her asking Melissa McCoul a senior lecturer in the English department if teaching gender ideology is legal pointing to President Donald Trump s executive orders aimed at removing the subject from higher tuition The internal committee ruled that the university failed to follow proper procedures and did not prove there was good cause to terminate McCoul The committee unanimously voted this week that the summary dismissal of Dr McCoul was not justified The university mentioned in a comment that interim President Tommy Williams has received the committee's nonbinding recommendation and will make a decision after reviewing it TEXAS LAWMAKER SLAMS TEXAS A M AFTER SCHOLAR ALLEGEDLY REMOVED FROM CLASS FOR CHALLENGING TRANSGENDER LESSONMcCoul's lawyer Amanda Reichek declared the dispute is likely to end up in court because the university appears to want to continue fighting and the interim president is facing similar political pressure 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 announced in a report Gov Greg Abbott and other Republicans had called for her firing after watching the video Fire the professor who acted contrary to Texas law the governor wrote on X in September The video led to society criticism of university president Mark Welsh who later resigned although he did not offer a reason and never mentioned the video in his resignation announcement State Rep Brian Harrison reported in a report 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 posted by Harrison on social media evidenced a slide titled Gender Unicorn that noted different gender identities and expressions Students in the class narrated The Texas Tribune that they were discussing a book called Jude Saves the World which is about a middle school scholar who comes out as nonbinary Several other books included in the program also touched on LGBTQ issues After a back-and-forth dispute about the legality of teaching the lessons on gender identity McCoul questioned the learner to leave the class Harrison also posted other recordings of the student's meeting with Welsh that evidenced the then-university president defending McCoul's instruction TEXAS A M REGENTS DEMAND AUDIT OF ALL COURSES AFTER TRANSGENDER LESSON CONTROVERSYWelsh declared when McCoul was fired that he learned she had continued teaching content in a children s literature unit that did not align with any reasonable expectation of standard curriculum for the program He also revealed the lesson content did not match its catalog descriptions If we allow different lesson 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 revealed in September noting that leaders in the College of Arts and Sciences were identified to have approved plans to continue teaching syllabus content that was not consistent with the class s published description Earlier this month the Texas A M Regents issued a new strategy stating that no academic lesson will advocate race or gender ideology or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity unless approved in advance by a campus president Fox News Digital reached out to Texas A M for comment The Associated Press contributed to this summary