Texas A&M System – Race and Gender Instruction Policies and Core Curriculum Changes

On November 13, 2025, the Board of Regents of the Texas A&M University System approved two system-wide policies governing instruction on race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The first prohibited courses from advocating “race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” unless the course and instructional materials received prior approval from the campus president or a designee. The second revised academic-freedom and tenure rules to require instructors to teach material consistent with an approved syllabus. Both policies took effect immediately, with enforcement beginning in spring 2026.

The policies defined “race ideology” as instruction that shames a race or ethnicity or promotes activism rather than academic study, and “gender ideology” as concepts of self-assessed gender identity disconnected from biological sex. Regents said the policies were intended to ensure that instruction aligned with approved course outcomes. The vote followed a 2025 incident in which a student recorded a classroom discussion of gender identity, prompting administrative review.

In December 2025 and January 2026, departments submitted syllabi for review, and administrators identified approximately 200 courses in the College of Arts and Sciences as potentially affected. Some courses were canceled, renumbered, or removed from the core curriculum, while others were directed to revise or remove content addressing race, gender, or sexuality. Philosophy professor Martin Peterson was directed to remove course units addressing race and gender, including material from Plato’s Symposium, or revise the syllabus to comply. He replaced the material with units on free speech and academic freedom and later left the university for a position at Southern Methodist University. English faculty were advised not to assign works with central LGBTQ+ themes in core courses unless those themes were not central to instruction. A history-of-film course was directed to remove units on feminism and queer cinema and was later offered as a non-core course.

By early February 2026, the policies had contributed to the termination of the Women’s and Gender Studies degree program. Current students were permitted to complete the program, but new enrollment ceased. On February 4, 2026, former lecturer Melissa McCoul filed a federal lawsuit alleging that her termination violated the First Amendment and principles of academic freedom. She alleges that she was dismissed after teaching a lesson on gender identity that drew public criticism and that she had not violated university policy.

The controversy continued into the fall. On August 3, 2026, the American Association of University Professors and four Texas A&M System professors sued the system, alleging that the instructional restrictions violate the First Amendment and seeking to block the policies and restore courses removed under them. The lawsuit remained pending as of September 2026. The following month, the system also completed a separate review of its core curriculum required by Senate Bill 37, which requires public university governing boards to review general-education curricula at least once every five years.

On September 3, 2026, the Board of Regents approved revised core curricula for the system’s universities following the course-by-course review. The approved curricula retained 1,254 course entries, added 26, and removed 350 entries from the core curriculum menus. The system emphasized that removal from the core did not itself cancel a course or prohibit a university from offering it; instead, the courses would no longer satisfy students’ general-education requirements.

At Texas A&M University in College Station, 103 course entries were removed from the core curriculum. The affected courses included Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies, LGBTQ Literatures, Introduction to Latinx Literature Studies, Women Writers, Introduction to Race and Ethnicity, Gender and Health, Blacks in the United States, Bible as Literature, and Climate Change. Other A&M System universities also removed courses addressing women, ethnic studies, diversity, and related subjects. The September core-curriculum review was formally separate from the November 2025 instructional policy, although the courses affected by the two developments substantially overlapped in subject matter.