Texas A&M scraps LGBTQ programme criticised by politician

The Texas A&M University System board of regents last week directed the president of its flagship to end 52 low-enrolment programmes, including a nascent LGBTQ studies minor that conservative state legislators have cast as “liberal indoctrination”.

Speculation around the dissolution of the LGBTQ studies minor had been swirling for months; in September, a conservative website reported that the university would end the programme.

Faculty have staunchly opposed the move, voting earlier this month to reject the programme cuts as proposed. University president Mark Welsh has registered his objections as well, asking that the “review process be halted and restarted to obtain input from the faculty senate”, according to board documents.

But facing sustained pressure from state lawmakers, the LGBTQ studies minor and other programmes are now destined for abrupt elimination.

Political pressure

After Texas A&M University launched the LGBTQ studies minor in the autumn of 2022, the university issued a press release the following June – Pride Month – that called the new programme a “major victory for LGBTQ+ scholars”. But the minor quickly came under scrutiny from Republican lawmakers.

“Texas A&M is offering a MINOR in this?? What. The. Hell. I will be demanding answers from @tamu on why they think my constituents should be forced to subsidize this,” Brian Harrison, a Republican state representative, wrote on social media in January, including a screenshot of the LGBTQ studies minor listing from the course catalogue.

In subsequent posts, Mr Harrison called the minor “liberal indoctrination” and promised to take it on in the next legislative session.

Last month, long before the board of regents met on Thursday and slashed the programmes, Mr Harrison declared victory, noting that Texas A&M System chancellor John Sharp had told him the programme would be axed.

In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Mr Harrison – a Texas A&M graduate – said he was outraged to learn about the LGBTQ studies programme at his alma mater and was “proud” to have ended it, arguing that it never should have been approved in the first place. Now he plans to go after the individual courses that are still being offered, including what he called an “alternative genders” class.

“If they’re going to keep that course, I want an official response from Texas A&M leadership,” Mr Harrison said. “I want them to tell me exactly how many genders they believe exist, and I guarantee you, I’m going to formally request that they give me that answer in writing.”

He added that he plans to take aim at other LGBTQ+ programmes at public universities across the state.

“You’ve all seen the tweets and the articles, and you know that we’ve heard from elected officials. We’ve been open about the fact that all those inquiries led us to examine how we’re evaluating the success of minors and certificates,” Texas A&M provost Alan Sams told the faculty senate, conceding that he should have involved them in the review process at an earlier stage.

But Professor Welsh indicated that there were no politics at play, at least as far as he was concerned. Testifying on Monday before a state Senate subcommittee on higher education about the role of faculty senates at public universities, Professor Welsh fielded questions from Democratic state senator Royce West, who asked if the deactivations “followed typical protocol”.

“It didn’t follow the typical protocol”, Professor Welsh responded, adding that “it is not atypical” for regents to raise concerns about particular issues.

When Mr West pressed Professor Welsh, the president noted that the university “had not completed the review process”. He said faculty members had expressed concern, leading him to believe that “we should hit pause on the process” and begin anew in the spring with faculty input.

“Is there any politics involved in this?” Mr West questioned. “If there were politics, it wasn’t with my office,” said Professor Welsh.

Faculty fury

Chaitanya Lakkimsetti, a sociology professor at Texas A&M who helped develop the LGBTQ studies minor, told Inside Higher Ed that she was not surprised by the legislative scrutiny, “given the national context” of conservative attacks on higher education. But she had been caught off guard by the way university officials responded. Like her fellow faculty members, she saw cutting the professoriate out of a curricular decision as an affront to shared governance.

She also worries about the larger implications for higher education. “This is an attack, of course, on academic freedom, but it’s also an attack on critical thinking,” Professor Lakkimsetti said, arguing that legislators such as Mr Harrison want to limit what subjects students can learn about.

While the decision-makers remain quiet, faculty have been seething over the programme deactivations, arguing that the board of regents violated university processes on curricular changes and ignored state guidance that recommends giving new programmes a five-year runway before reviewing them for low enrolment.

Texas A&M faculty have also accused the provost of cutting them out of the process and questioned his claims that the targeted programmes are being eliminated for fiscal reasons.

In a 5 November letter, faculty senate leaders noted that their executive committee had taken emergency action to reject the programme cuts before the board of regents took it to a vote. They also made it clear that they viewed the deactivation process as a failure of shared governance.

“As the representative body of our faculty, the senate and its [executive committee] is deeply concerned for our university and the reputational risk that the provost’s proposal represents,” Angie Hill Price, speaker of the faculty senate, writes in the letter to the faculty. “The EC is concerned that the board of regents may not be fully aware of the deeply flawed process and the ramifications of the provost’s decisions. We do not oppose the concept of a process, but we vehemently oppose the one that was implemented by the provost with little consideration of the consequences.”

The Texas chapter of the American Association of University Professors also condemned the changes, writing on X: “We are deeply concerned that the @tamusystem board has decided to override the objections of faculty and students and eliminated more than 50 minors and certificates. Administrators should not be limiting the topics that students can study.”

Even as faculty fret, Mr Harrison indicated that the fight is only beginning.

“There needs to be accountability,” he said, arguing that as Republican president-elect Donald Trump “reins in the rogue administrative state…Texas should lead by example”.

Asked how he would respond to faculty concerns about the loss of academic freedom, Mr Harrison remained unmoved.

“Once I get done laughing, I would remind them that it is the people of the state of Texas that fund our public universities, and they are overtaxed, and they’re sick and tired of having their tax dollars weaponised against them and their values,” he said.

This is an edited version of a story that first appeared on Inside Higher Ed.