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Texas A&M University System Regents voted unanimously Thursday to approve a new policy that will require every campus president to sign off on any curriculum that could be viewed as advocating “race and gender ideology or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The policy defines race ideology as “an attempt to shame a particular race or ethnicity” or anything that “promotes activism on issues related to race or ethnicity rather than educational instruction. Gender ideology is defined as “the concept of a self-assessed gender identity that replaces and separates the biological category of sex.”
The Regents also approved a policy that would prohibit faculty from teaching material inconsistent with the approved curriculum for each course. Both policies will take effect immediately, but enforcement will begin in the spring of 2026.
The changes approved Thursday were largely in response to a student’s secret recording of a professor discussing gender identity in a children’s literature course, a controversy that sparked conservative outrage and shocked Texas’ higher education institutions.
Regents Chairman Robert Albritton said the board received 142 letters of written testimony on the new policies. Ten people – all professors – testified on the issues, with eight speaking in opposition and two in favour. When the entire board took up items for consideration, faculty and students also entered the room, filling the seats and many people standing in the back of the room.
“The ambiguity of the language is problematic,” geography professor Andrew Klein told the board. “Faculty are now assuming that all instruction in the subject matter of concern will be prohibited. Will subjects such as medicine, public health and law, where such material is needed to prepare professionals for the Texas workforce, be denied?”
Philosophy professor Martin Peterson told the Regents that academics “seek the truth.”
Peterson said, “However, when we seek the truth, we sometimes have to explore ideas that touch on controversial issues.” “It is not always clear what counts as advocacy of an ideology in those contexts.”
When asked about the difference between advocacy and teaching, Regent Sam Torn told the Tribune he was “not going to go into the details of it because we’ve made it clear that [presidents of each institution] This responsibility has been placed on him.”
“What we’re doing is very simple,” Torn said. “It’s not that complicated. We’re just making sure that we educate, and we’re just making sure that we teach what the course curriculum specifies that we teach.”
Miranda Sachs, a European history professor, told the board that by restricting topics related to race or ethnicity, she would not be able to teach about the Holocaust, the state-sponsored murder of more than six million Jewish people.
Sachs said, “The newly revised policy will, in fact, make it impossible for me to teach this history in my class at A&M.”
Later in the meeting, Regent John Bellinger addressed Sachs’ concerns and said, “There has to be some common sense in this.”
“I think we’re taking it too far when we talk about, you know, not teaching about what happened in the world wars,” Bellinger said.
Additionally, the Regents on Thursday previewed new rules and procedures to audit all course content every semester at the system’s 12 schools, also in response to the recording that such steps were ordered. The audit was announced by System Chancellor Glenn Hager the day after the secret recording went viral.
“This is a serious system-wide review of every course, every curriculum,” Regent Torn said at a Thursday meeting of the Regents’ Subcommittee on Academic and Student Affairs. “We are examining the knowledge behind each degree, low-yield programs, workforce relevance and financial leadership.”
James R. Hallmark, the system’s vice chancellor for academic affairs and whom Hager chose to lead the audit, told regents during the subcommittee meeting that each university will now be required to feed curriculum and course descriptions into a database that will be screened by artificial intelligence for content that does not align with the approved curriculum.
AI analysis will consider whether the course applies to the core curriculum or is a requirement for a major or elective. This will also take into account the course and details such as where it is taught and enrollment numbers.
Hallmark said, “The purpose of getting that level of detail was to understand whether the course was truly optional, was the student’s choice or somehow the student had no other choice but to take that particular course.” “This depth of analysis is unprecedented in such reviews.”
The audit could help review courses for compliance with the new policies approved on Thursday.
“These policy changes complement the academic review and transparency initiatives currently underway,” Hallmark said. “And together they ensure clear course objectives, student accessible reporting mechanisms, regular reviews and continuous quality improvement.”
The proposals approved by the board Thursday reflect concerns raised by university officials when they fired Professor Melissa McCall over a video that went viral in September.
University officials said McCall has refused to change his course content to match the catalog descriptions, but he and other faculty countered that course descriptions have historically been broad, and professors are expected to design their own courses and teach according to their expertise.
McCall has appealed his dismissal through the university’s Academic Freedom, Accountability and Tenure Committee, which held a hearing on the matter last week. The committee is expected to share a recommendation with interim university President Tommy Williams on how to respond to McCall’s appeal in the coming weeks, but Williams is under no obligation to follow it. A separate A&M faculty panel concluded in September that McCall’s dismissal violated his academic freedom.
The system will also launch a 24/7 option for students to report what they believe to be inaccurate or misleading course content. Hallmark said system staff will review any student reports and work with the appropriate university to address concerns.
“It should be noted that the Texas A&M System is moving forward first, setting a model that others will follow,” Torn said.
Since McCall’s dismissal, other university systems have begun imposing their own restrictions on classroom content.
On September 25, the Texas Tech University System directed its faculty to ensure that its courses comply with federal executive orders, a letter from Governor Greg Abbott, and a new state law that recognizes only two genders. In the weeks that followed, other systems announced or initiated their own internal audits. All said they are working to ensure compliance with state or federal law, though few elaborated on what they’re looking for or what changes might be made.
No state or federal law prohibits universities from offering instruction on race, gender, or sexual orientation. However, recent state legislation has placed direct and indirect pressure on how universities enforce policies related to race and gender.
The proposals have been criticized by free speech experts and university faculty alike. Robert Shilby, special counsel for campus advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said the proposal would “invite unlawful censorship, chill academic freedom, and undermine the core purpose of a university.”
“It is meaningless to hire professors with PhDs if administrators decide what will be taught,” Shilby said. “Faculty will start asking ‘Is this accurate?’ But ‘will it bother me?’ This is not education, this is risk management.”
These changes are also creating confusion among some faculty. In an email sent to faculty on Monday, which was obtained by the Texas Tribune, Simon North, interim dean of Texas A&M’s College of Arts and Sciences, acknowledged that the proposals have raised questions about its implementation, “such as the criteria that will determine whether course material is considered relevant, controversial or inconsistent with the curriculum.” He said he is working with the provost’s office to answer those questions and will seek input on the proposal from other college leaders and department heads.
Disclosure: The Texas A&M University System and the Texas Tech University System have been financial supporters of the Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization funded by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters have no role in Tribune’s journalism. Find their full list here.