Texas A&M University’s abrupt firing of a professor over a controversial classroom lesson on gender has ignited a dispute over academic freedom, legality, and the state’s DEI ban.
The decision followed days of escalating pressure after a hidden-camera video circulated by Republican state Rep. Brian Harrison showed Professor Melissa McCoul dismissing a student who objected to a discussion of gender identity.
President Mark A. Welsh III initially removed a dean and department head, stating that the class content deviated from the published course descriptions, as previously reported by The Dallas Express. But by late September 9, Welsh announced he had terminated the professor, reversing earlier remarks in which he had defended the information as necessary for students preparing for careers in psychiatry, education, or nonprofits.
“This isn’t about academic freedom; it’s about academic responsibility,” Welsh wrote in a statement. “Our students use the published information in the course catalog to make important decisions about the courses they take in pursuit of their degrees. If we allow different course content to be taught from what is advertised, we break trust with our students.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott weighed in on social media:
The professor has now been fired. https://t.co/56BCz2ox5O
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) September 10, 2025
Free-speech advocates countered that the firing violated the First Amendment.
“As a public institution of higher education, Texas A&M is bound by the First Amendment, which protects Professor Melissa McCoul’s right to engage in pedagogically relevant classroom lectures and discussions even on controversial topics,” Charlotte Arneson, program officer with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told The Dallas Express via email. “The President’s executive order does not prohibit protected speech on university campuses, and it should not be used as an excuse to trample the academic freedom of faculty.”
Trump issued an executive order in January that threatened federal funds to public institutions that promoted “gender ideology” through various means, such as allowing men to use women’s locker rooms; however, the policy change did not address university coursework that promotes the notion of there being more than two genders.
Lawmakers passed Senate Bill 17 in 2023, banning DEI offices and related initiatives that focused on racial or gender ideology. But the statute, which Abbott signed and Harrison supported, explicitly exempts academic coursework from its prohibitions.
Harrison has circulated internal emails that he claimed show department officials shielding the professor and pressuring the student not to release the recordings. Texas A&M has not confirmed the authenticity of those documents and has not said whether further investigations are underway.
Welsh’s handling of the controversy has shifted sharply over the past two days.
On September 8, he apparently acknowledged that A&M had provided alternative ways for students to complete the disputed course but defended LGBTQ-related coursework as valuable for certain professions such as psychiatry. “Those people don’t get to pick who their clients are, what citizens they serve, and they want to understand the issues affecting the people they’re going to treat,” Welsh appeared to say in a recording released by Harrison.
By September 9, Welsh said he could no longer permit deviations from the course catalog, ordering a review of all 16,000 course sections to ensure compliance. “Texas A&M is a great university — the best in the world. This is a place that honors academic freedom and academic responsibility. It’s also a place that unequivocally abides by state and federal law,” he explained.
Texas A&M System Chancellor Glenn Hegar also condemned the classroom materials, describing them as “irreconcilable” with system values. “It is unacceptable for A&M System faculty to push a personal political agenda,” he wrote on X.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice may become involved. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told the Houston Chronicle her office would review the matter, calling it “deeply concerning.”
The university has not indicated whether McCoul plans to appeal the firing.