Texas censors get more censorial

Another week, another instance of Texas censorship. Administrators forced assistant history professor Aaron George to alter his course content not once, but two separate times — first by removing two readings from his course and then by removing the term “LGBT Americans” from his syllabus. 

Before the start of this semester, George submitted his syllabus for his upper-level history course “Research in American Political History From 1929 to the Present.” Administrators flagged two objectionable assigned readings: Carl Wittman’s article “A Gay Manifesto,” and Kevin Kruse’s book White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservativism. 

“Our options for proceeding are for you to change those readings and related content in class,” an administrator wrote. “Or, if you are not comfortable doing that, we will need to cancel the class and find another one for you to teach.”

George then removed the readings, and his course was able to proceed. But shortly after he was told to remove those readings, he received another email about an unspecified student complaint concerning another U.S. history course he teaches. That email vaguely informed George that he had potentially violated a system policy that prohibits teaching “gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.” It did not do him the courtesy of telling him how.

George reviewed his course syllabus and decided that the following sentence might be the one deemed objectionable: “In particular, this course focuses on the way the 14th Amendment changed the relationship between Americans and their government, and the ways the role of the government expanded to protect the rights of groups such as African Americans, LGBT Americans, and women.” He removed the phrase “LGBT Americans” — and he guessed right. The course gained approval. 

FIRE wrote to Tarleton State last week about this blatant violation of George’s academic freedom. Now we’re going public to draw further attention to the censorial atmosphere on Texas campuses. 

Late last year, the Texas A&M system (of which Tarleton State is part) instituted a mandatory course review to ensure that “no system academic course will advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.” While it did carve out potential exemptions for certain graduate courses, the result has been hundreds of courses that have had their content changed in some way, and the outright cancellation of a number of others. 

This story represents another chilling development regarding free speech in Texas. Whether it’s shuttering an art exhibit at the University of North Texas, ordering a philosophy professor to remove Plato excerpts from his philosophy course, or canceling a psychology course because the professor refused to censor his teaching, these cases are no doubt just the tip of the iceberg. And that’s really disturbing. Because when universities start scrubbing courses of politically controversial ideas, the lesson students learn isn’t one of history or psychology — it’s fear. 

Public college and university faculty who face a threat of sanction by their institution or have been punished for expressive activity — whether it’s instruction, scholarship, or speaking on issues of public concern — can submit matters to FIRE’s Faculty Legal Defense Fund by calling the dedicated Hotline at 254-500-FLDF (3533), or submitting a case online.