Texas A&M fires professor after clash over LGBTQ curriculum

A professor at Texas A&M University was fired after a video of a dustup over LGBTQ material in her children’s literature class went viral. The professor’s course content was inconsistent with the college’s published description, university president Mark Welsh said on Tuesday evening.

Welsh also fired the dean of arts and sciences and the head of the English department, and said Texas A&M would audit its course content to make sure it matched catalog descriptions.

The controversy began after Texas state Rep. Brian Harrison, a graduate of the university, on Monday posted a video of a confrontation between the professor and a student over gender ideology material in her class. The teacher had been lecturing on children’s gender identity and sexual orientation, according to Harrison. After the student objected to the instruction, she asked her to leave class and not return, according to other information Harrison shared.

Harrison also shared audio that he said was of a meeting between University President Welsh and the student in question. In the shared audio clip, Welsh seems to tell her that some LGBTQ courses were needed and that the teacher would not be fired.

Harrison referred the situation to the Trump administration and the governor of Texas. Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon on Monday afternoon said that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division would look into the matter, which she described as deeply concerning. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott chimed in on Tuesday, asking the university to fire the professor for violating Texas law.

Did the situation end with the teacher’s firing? Rep. Harrison late on Tuesday was pushing for the university’s board of regents to fire university president Welsh and order an end to all LGBTQ activities at the school. The board had not publicly responded to his request.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s story on U.S. students’ low scores on an education report.