Texas A&M just became ground zero in the battle over woke ideology in higher education.
A viral video sparked a firestorm that ended careers and forced a university president out.
Now the entire system dropped the hammer, and college professors across the state can't stop screaming about it.
Texas A&M drops the hammer on classroom activists
The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents voted unanimously to require professors to get presidential approval before teaching courses that "advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity."¹
Every single regent voted yes. No debate, no hesitation.
The policy covers all 12 universities in the Texas A&M system and professors must now stick to their approved syllabi — no more sneaking radical ideology into courses under the guise of "academic freedom."²
Students can report professors who go rogue through a new 24/7 hotline.³
This is the first public university system in Texas to put specific rules on what faculty can say about race and gender in the classroom, and it's driving the Left absolutely insane.
Board Chairman Robert Albritton said the university has "a responsibility to be disciplined stewards of taxpayer resources."⁴
Translation: parents and taxpayers are done funding woke indoctrination centers disguised as universities.
The policy defines "gender ideology" as "a concept of self-assessed gender identity replacing, and disconnected from, the biological category of sex."⁵
That's bureaucrat-speak for "men can't become women and we're not pretending otherwise in taxpayer-funded classrooms."
"Race ideology" means teaching that shames people based on ethnicity or promotes activism instead of actual education.⁶
Regent Sam Torn cut through the noise: the goal is to "make sure we are educating, not advocating."⁷
What a concept — actually teaching students instead of recruiting them into the revolutionary vanguard.
AI will audit every single course to catch woke professors
Here's where it gets good.
The university system announced it will use artificial intelligence to review every undergraduate course each semester, scanning syllabi and materials for content that doesn't match approved descriptions.⁸
Vice Chancellor James Hallmark said the depth of this analysis is "unprecedented in such reviews."⁹
They're checking whether courses are truly electives or if students are forced to take them, examining enrollment patterns, and making sure content aligns with actual workforce needs instead of social justice fantasies.¹⁰
The system already ran a pilot at Tarleton State University.
Guess which departments got flagged most? The College of Education, including sociology and psychology.¹¹
Shocking absolutely no one who's been paying attention.
Every semester, every course, every syllabus gets the AI treatment. Professors who spent decades using their classrooms as political organizing spaces just got put on notice.
Woke professors throw an academic tantrum
More than 140 people sent written comments before the vote, and eight faculty members spoke against the policy during the meeting.¹²
The whining was spectacular.
Miranda Sachs, who teaches Western civilization, claimed she wouldn't be able to teach about the Holocaust because discussing which ethnic group was responsible would violate the race ideology ban.¹³
That's her actual argument — teaching historical facts about Nazi genocide of Jewish people somehow equals "race ideology."
The board had to clarify there's "got to be some common sense in this" and obviously World War II history isn't banned.¹⁴
But Sachs wasn't done catastrophizing.
Nancy Plankey-Videla, who runs the Latino/a and Mexican American studies program, worried she can't teach labor market comparisons between different ethnic groups.¹⁵
Andrew Klein, a geography professor, complained the policy language is too vague and "faculty are now assuming that all instructions in the topic of concern will be prohibited."¹⁶
Philosophy professor Martin Peterson said exploring controversial ideas makes it unclear "what counts as advocating for an ideology."¹⁷
You know what's interesting? None of these professors can explain why they need to "advocate" for anything in the classroom.
They're supposed to teach geography, philosophy, and labor economics — not recruit activists.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sent an angry letter calling the policy "unconstitutional censorship."¹⁸
"Hiring professors with PhDs is meaningless if administrators are the ones deciding what gets taught," FIRE officials wrote.¹⁹
Here's a better question: why are we hiring professors with PhDs if they can't teach their actual subject without injecting racial grievance politics?
Only two faculty members spoke in favor of the changes.
Finance professor Adam Kolasinski nailed it: "academic freedom does not mean you get to teach whatever you want."²⁰
Especially when taxpayers are footing the bill.
This is what accountability looks like
Here's what actually happened.
A professor named Melissa McCoul was teaching gender ideology in a children's literature course at Texas A&M.
A student recorded her pushing this garbage, posted the video online in September, and it exploded across social media.²¹
The backlash was immediate and brutal.
Governor Greg Abbott and Republican lawmakers demanded action.
Texas A&M fired McCoul within days, removed two senior administrators from their positions, and President Mark Welsh III resigned under intense political pressure.²²
Now a faculty committee claims McCoul's firing "violated her academic freedom."²³
They're missing the point entirely.
This wasn't about academic freedom — it was about a professor using her position to indoctrinate students with ideology that has nothing to do with children's literature.
The fact that faculty committees are defending this garbage is exactly why the Board of Regents had to step in.
President Trump showed the way in January when he issued an executive order banning schools from "imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation's children."²⁴
Texas already passed a statewide ban on diversity, equity and inclusion policies at universities in 2023.
Now the Texas A&M system is finishing the job by making professors actually teach their subjects instead of running recruiting drives for the radical Left.
Your tax dollars have been funding these woke factories for decades. Your kids and grandkids have been subjected to professors who see every lecture as an opportunity to shame them for being American, for being white, for believing in biological reality.
That era is ending.
Regent Sam Torn said he hopes other university systems follow Texas A&M's lead: "Let it be noted, the Texas A&M system is stepping up first, setting the model that others will follow."²⁵
They will. Because parents and taxpayers across this country are done being told that men can be women, that America is systemically racist, and that Western civilization is oppressive.
Universities exist to educate students, not indoctrinate them.
Texas A&M just reminded every woke professor in the state who's actually in charge.
¹ Nicholas Gutteridge, "Texas A&M OKs 'race and gender ideology' restrictions," Texas Tribune, November 13, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ Ibid.
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ Ibid.
¹¹ Inside Higher Ed, "Texas A&M Requires Approval for Courses That 'Advocate' Certain Ideologies," November 13, 2025.
¹² Nicholas Gutteridge, "Texas A&M OKs 'race and gender ideology' restrictions," Texas Tribune, November 13, 2025.
¹³ Ibid.
¹⁴ Ibid.
¹⁵ Samantha Ketterer, "Texas A&M requires president's approval for race, gender 'advocacy'," Houston Chronicle, November 13, 2025.
¹⁶ Nicholas Gutteridge, "Texas A&M OKs 'race and gender ideology' restrictions," Texas Tribune, November 13, 2025.
¹⁷ Ibid.
¹⁸ Inside Higher Ed, "Texas A&M Requires Approval for Courses That 'Advocate' Certain Ideologies," November 13, 2025.
¹⁹ Ibid.
²⁰ Juan A. Lozano, "Texas A&M University professors now need approval for some race and gender topics," Associated Press, November 13, 2025.
²¹ Gavin Escott, "Texas A&M System Sharply Restricts How Faculty Can Teach About Race and Gender," Chronicle of Higher Education, November 13, 2025.
²² Ibid.
²³ Jessica Priest, "Texas A&M faculty panel report says professor's firing violated her academic freedom," Texas Tribune, November 10, 2025.
²⁴ Jaryn Crouson, "Texas University Professors Now Have To Get Permission Before Covering Race Or Gender," Daily Caller, November 14, 2025.
²⁵ Gavin Escott, "Texas A&M System Sharply Restricts How Faculty Can Teach About Race and Gender," Chronicle of Higher Education, November 13, 2025.
