Key Takeaways

The Texas A&M Board of Regents unanimously enacted a policy requiring presidential approval for courses advocating race or gender ideology, defined as promoting self-assessed gender identity over biological sex or shaming specific races.

The policy aims to prevent activism related to race or ethnicity from being presented as academic instruction, with enforcement set to begin in spring 2026.

Faculty members have expressed concerns that the vague definitions could infringe upon academic freedom and hinder essential discussions in subjects like medicine and law.

The Texas A&M System Board of Regents voted unanimously Thursday to require presidential approval for courses that advocate for race or gender ideology. 

The new policy states that “no system academic course will advocate race or gender ideology, sexual orientation, or gender identity unless the course is approved by the member CEO,” Inside Higher Ed reported. 

It defines “gender ideology” as “a concept of self-assessed gender identity replacing, and disconnected from, the biological category of sex.”

The policy also defines race ideology as “attempts to shame a particular race or ethnicity” or anything that “promotes activism on issues related to race or ethnicity rather than academic instruction,” according to The Texas Tribune. 

The measures will take effect right away, though enforcement won’t begin until spring 2026.

Regent Sam Torn told The Texas Tribune that each university’s president is responsible for determining what constitutes “advocating for an ideology.”

Reaction from faculty was swift. Several professors have criticized the new policies, arguing they will infringe on academic freedom. 

Geography professor Andrew Klein took issue with “the vagueness of the language,” saying, “Faculty are now assuming that all instructions in the topic of concern will be prohibited.” 

“Will subjects like medicine, public health and law, where such content is required to prepare professionals for the Texas workforce, be disallowed?” he said. 

Similarly, philosophy professor Martin Peterson said that in order to seek the truth, educators “sometimes have to explore ideas that touch on controversial issues.”

“It is not always clear what counts as advocating for an ideology in those contexts,” he said. 

Political science professor at Texas A&M San Antonio Dan Braaten said “faculty are extremely worried,” according to Inside Higher Ed. 

Professors are unsure whether they can even proceed with their spring courses. They don’t know who will be scrutinizing their syllabi or what penalties might apply, Braaten said. 

A civil rights group also weighed in. The Legal Defense Fund strongly condemned the system’s new policy in a news release Friday.

“The sweeping censorship policy, enacted yesterday by the Texas A&M Board of Regents, is a direct threat to the academic freedom of Texas faculty and students. It impedes important scholarship about the history and ongoing realities of race and gender inequalities in our country,” LDF stated.

In addition to the content restrictions, the regents also introduced new rules and procedures to review all course content across the system’s 12 campuses each semester, according to The Texas Tribune. 

“It’s a serious system-wide review of every course, every syllabus,” Torn said. 

“We are examining the body of knowledge behind each degree, low-producing programs, workforce relevance and financial stewardship,” he said. 

Under the new process, each university will now have to upload its course information into a central database, where artificial intelligence will review it for material that doesn’t match the syllabi that have been approved, the Tribune reported.

The new revisions were driven in large part by a student’s viral video exposing a professor’s gender ideology lessons in a children’s literature class.

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