Faculty Sues University over Plato-Banning Policy

Texas A&M is being sued by a group of professors and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas over a policy that led to, among other things, a professor being banned from teaching Plato’s Symposium, the cancellation of an “Ethics and Public Policy” course, and the closure of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. The policy, instituted by the university’s Board of Regents in the fall of 2025, prohibits courses from “advocating race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.” The policy does not define “advocating” but the university appears to have interpreted it to mean “including”. The results of this have been a number of academic freedom violations and some faculty fleeing the university. According to the lawsuit, the university’s policy and its implementation of it “violate Plaintiffs’ First Amendment free speech and Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. The Censorship Policy imposes unconstitutionally vague, viewpoint discriminatory,…