Texas Professor Fired After Accusations of Teaching ‘Gender Ideology’

Texas A&M University swiftly fired a lecturer and removed two administrators after a student filmed herself arguing with the instructor that a children’s literature course broke the law because the coursework recognized more than two genders.

The student cited President Trump, who has signed an executive order saying his administration would push for the recognition of only two genders. After the video taken by the student was posted on social media, Republican politicians in the state, including the governor, demanded quick action from the public university, accusing the instructor of “blatantly indoctrinating students in gender ideology.”

The school’s moves were condemned by advocates of academic freedom, who say they reflected a state that was veering into authoritarianism at a moment when the Trump administration was using the weight of the federal government to target speech it disfavors.

Mark Welsh, Texas A&M’s president, said he terminated the instructor, Melissa McCoul, and removed the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and head of the English department from their posts. He said that the content of the course, an English department class called “Literature for Children,” did not meet expectations and that the description of the course did not match its content.

“This isn’t about academic freedom; it’s about academic responsibility,” he said in a message Tuesday. “Our degree programs and courses go through extensive approval processes, and we must ensure that what we ultimately deliver to students is consistent with what was approved.”

He did not provide any detail in his statement about how the description did not match the course content, and a Texas A&M spokesman did not immediately respond to questions. Mr. Welsh also said the university would conduct an audit to ensure course content and descriptions matched.

The arts and sciences dean, Mark J. Zoran, did not immediately respond to a message. The head of the English department, Emily J. Johansen, declined to comment. The lecturer, Professor McCoul, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

In a video posted on Monday by Brian Harrison, a state lawmaker and Texas A&M alum, a student begins filming an image projected at the front of the classroom of a “gender unicorn,” a teaching tool to explain the differences between gender identity and gender expression.

“I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching because, according to our president, there’s only two genders,” the student says. “He said that he would be freezing agencies’ funding programs that promote gender ideology. And this also very much goes against not only myself but a lot of people’s religious beliefs, and so I am not going to participate in this because it’s not legal.”

The professor said, “You are under a misconception that what I’m saying is illegal.”

On President Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order that said U.S. policy would recognize only two sexes, male and female. “The Executive Branch will enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality,” the order stated.

The video showed instruction during an upper-level English class that was taught at the university over the summer, Mr. Harrison said in an interview. But, he argued, the discussion of gender was not unique to that class, or to Texas A&M.

“Why haven’t all the professors who are indoctrinating this material been fired years ago?” he said, arguing that Texas should end all gender studies programs and instruction at public universities.

A termination letter sent to Ms. McCoul, a senior lecturer at the university, said that the president of the university had been made aware in July that material in her class “did not align with the course catalog,” and said she did not subsequently “change the course content to align with the catalog description.”

Texas has moved to restrict policies related to racial diversity in public universities, and this year it barred gender instruction in K-12 schools. But the Legislature has not passed a similar restriction on gender instruction in public universities, which still list courses tackling topics such as gender and sexuality in literature, including at Texas A&M.

Gov. Greg Abbott said, in a post on social media responding to the video of the classroom at Texas A&M, that the teaching of gender depicted in the class was “contrary to Texas law.” But it was not clear what law Mr. Abbott was referring to. A spokesman for the governor pointed to the termination letter sent to Ms. McCoul that did not directly allege any violation of state law.

Mr. Abbott issued a letter in January following President Trump’s order on gender saying that state agencies must “comply with the law and the biological reality that there are only two sexes — male and female.”

But, Mr. Harrison said, the state Legislature has not followed up with legal changes that would bar the kind of instruction found on the video. Mr. Harrison, who served in the first Trump administration and represents an area south of Dallas, said he filed more than a dozen bills this year seeking to stop taxpayer funds from being used “to propagandize these ideologies.”

“Unfortunately, the Republican elected leadership in the state of Texas has refused to actually ban this,” Mr. Harrison said. “It’s been one of the biggest underreported scandals in America.”

Texas A&M, a massive flagship public university system with countless conservative alumni across the state, has been the target of conservative pressure campaigns before over its approach to race and gender. This year, the university pulled out of a minority student recruiting conference because of accusations by the conservative activist Christopher Rufo that the gathering violated the state’s law against D.E.I. policies. Last year, the university canceled a minor in L.G.B.T.Q. studies, after public pressure from Mr. Harrison.

The moves this week by Texas A&M represented “the death of academic freedom in Texas, the remaking of universities as tools of authoritarianism that suppress free thought,” said Jonathan Friedman, a director with PEN America, a free-expression group, in a statement.

“The decision to remove these academic leaders to satisfy politicians’ demands is an excessive punishment for the alleged violation of transparency requirements,” he added. “When university presidents have little choice but to dismiss faculty members’ expertise and enforce ideological edicts, the space for free speech and open inquiry on our campuses is undeniably being suffocated.”

Mr. Harrison said that he had received videos, audio recordings and documents collected by the student, whom he declined to name. He commended her bravery and said he would be releasing more documents if the university does not fire its president.