Texas A&M committee says firing of professor over gender lesson was unjustified

A Texas A&M committee ruled that the university’s decision to fire a professor after a student was removed from class for objecting to a children’s literature class on gender identity was unjustified.

In a video recorded earlier this year by a student, she was seen asking Melissa McCoul, a senior lecturer in the English department, whether teaching gender ideology was legal, while pointing at the president Donald Trump’s Implementing regulations aimed at eliminating the subject from higher education.

The internal committee ruled that the university had not followed proper procedures and failed to demonstrate that there was good cause for McCoul’s dismissal. The committee voted unanimously this week that “the summary dismissal of Dr. McCoul was not justified.”

The university said in a statement that Interim President Tommy Williams received the committee’s non-binding recommendation and would make a decision after review.

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McCoul’s attorney, Amanda Reichek, said the dispute will likely end in court because the university appears to want to continue fighting and the interim president faces similar political pressure.

“Dr. McCoul contends that the flimsy reasons A&M cites for her termination are a smokescreen for the university’s true motivation: capitulation to Governor Abbott’s demands,” Reichek said in a statement.

governor Greg Abbott and other Republicans had called for her firing after seeing the video.

“Fire the professor who violated Texas law,” the governor wrote on X in September.

The video sparked public criticism of university President Mark Welsh, who later resigned, although he gave no reason and never mentioned the video in his resignation announcement.

State Representative Brian Harrison said in a statement to Fox News Digital at the time that “the liberal president of Texas A&M must be fired and all DEI and LGBTQ indoctrination defunded.”

At the beginning of the video posted by Harrison on social media, there was a slide titled “Gender Unicorn” that mentioned different gender identities and expressions.

Students in the class told the Texas Tribune that they were discussing a book called “Jew Saves the World,” about a middle school student who comes out as non-binary. Several other books included in the course also addressed LGBTQ+ issues.

After a back-and-forth argument about the legality of teaching gender identity, McCoul asked the student to leave class. Harrison also released other footage of the student meeting with Welsh, which showed the then-university president defending McCoul’s teaching.

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Welsh said when McCoul was fired, he learned that she had continued to teach content in a children’s literature course “that was inconsistent with the reasonable expectations of a standard course curriculum.” He also said the course content did not match the catalog descriptions.

“If we allow course content to be taught other than what was announced, we are failing our students. When it comes to our academic offerings, we must keep our word to our students and to the state of Texas,” he said in September, noting that leaders in the College of Arts and Sciences had agreed to plans to continue teaching course content that did not match the course’s published description.

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Earlier this month the Texas A&M Regents has issued a new policy stating that no academic course will “advocate racial or gender ideology or issues related to sexual orientation or gender identity” unless previously approved by a campus president.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Texas A&M for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.