News for Queer Women

Texas A&M Takes Axe To Women’s And Gender Studies Program

February 5, 2026

Adhering to restrictive policies on race and gender, the university has scrutinized syllabuses, eliminated courses and will be dropping its women’s and gender studies degree.

Featured Image: Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

First it was the adjustment to hundreds of syllabuses, a watchful eye on course content, and elimination of some courses altogether. Next came censoring Plato. Now, Texas A&M University, under the direction of the System Board of Regents, has canceled the entire women’s and gender studies program. The announcement this past Friday is seen widely as an acquiescence to political pressure; and as calling into question the university’s commitment to academic freedom, and even our most foundational constitutional rights: freedom of speech, press and assembly.

Given the recent string of incidents that have showcased A&M’s alignment with government-issued doctrine, the news shouldn’t be a shock. Still, it’s devastating to those who place value on intellectual freedom, and who favor access to perspectives across a range of experiences and histories that are not always easy to confront.

The writing may have been on the wall in 2024, when the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents directed the university to drop its minor in LGBTQ studies. It was a drastic change of mood from several years prior, when A&M’s Women and Gender Studies Department introduced the LGBTQ Studies minor – a launch celebrated in a 2023 university press release (the page has strangely disappeared from their website, replaced with an error message: “We apologize, the page you’ve requested cannot be found!”).

The decision to drop the minor, as reported by The Texas Tribune, followed conservative criticism about “liberal indoctrination” on campus. According to the outlet, faculty said at the time that they were excluded from the process. The ‘official’ justification was, at least in part, pinned on what was described as low enrollment – an explanation that many deemed unprecedented, and informed by faulty data and a lack of actual faculty input.

Late last year, A&M escalated the crackdown on subject material, and issued new policies with a big broad stroke: “No system academic course will advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.”

The sweeping dictate came just months after a classroom recording went viral — secretly recorded by a student when a professor in a children’s lit class projected an image of a “gender unicorn,” an infographic used to teach differences between gender identity and expression. “I just have a question, because I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching,” the student said as she covertly recorded from her phone. “Because according to our president, there’s only two genders.” After some back and forth, the student was asked to leave. The class was canceled several days later. Ultimately, the professor was fired.

Video: Texas A&M student recording of her objection to classroom discussion of gender (via X)

As it stands now, certain classes that are not part of the core curriculum may include teaching about gender and race, but only if a campus president agrees that there is “a necessary educational purpose.” Meaning, the subjects are essentially banned from undergraduate core curriculum. A “presidential exception” allows that faculty may teach these subjects in select non-core or graduate courses if they receive written approval from the campus president.

Faculty are restricted from teaching “material that is inconsistent with the approved syllabus for the course” or introducing “a controversial matter” not connected with a class subject. Regent Sam Torn reportedly said the policy is to “make sure we are educating and not advocating.”

In addition to being mired in a unicorn scandal, the university has garnered unflattering attention for other acts of censorship — acts that have left many scratching their heads.

In January, Martin Peterson, a Texas A&M philosophy professor was told to remove Plato readings that touched on race and gender, or face reassignment to another class. The university claimed not to be banning Plato entirely, noting that other courses might include the philosopher’s teachings, if the modules did not focus on race or gender.

“No one can reasonably say that a Philosophy professor shouldn’t get to teach Plato in a philosophy class,” Martin Peterson, AAUP Texas A&M, said in a video shared by the American Association of University Professors. “… I’m not trying to indoctrinate my students, but I want to offer them valuable perspectives that they don’t get elsewhere.”

Video: Martin Peterson, Professor of Philosophy, speaks (via Facebook)

You might also like...