Political Pressure Leads to A Series of Dismissals and Expulsions at Texas Public Universities
- Endangered Scholars Worldwide
- 15 minutes ago
- 6 min read
In the past week, two professors, Melissa McCoul at Texas A&M and Thomas Alter at Texas State University, have been fired, demonstrating the real effects of a nationwide effort by the Republican Party to exert political control over both the classroom as well as the speech of professors beyond the university campus. Both dismissals occurred in the context of heightening pressure on public universities in Texas by Republican politicians, highlighting the urgency of addressing political attacks on academic freedom.
On September 9, 2025, the president of Texas A&M University, Mark A. Welsh III, announced that he ordered the termination of a university professor and the removal of two professors from their administrative positions following a controversy regarding the teaching of gender-related content in a university course.
The cited reason for the termination and the removals was that a professor of a children’s literature course was allegedly teaching material “that did not align with any reasonable expectation of standard curriculum for the course.” The president further claimed that these decisions were taken after a warning had been issued to the College of Arts and Sciences and the English Department in the summer term, but the same issue persisted into the fall semester.
President Welsh concluded his statement by emphasizing that this was not an issue of academic freedom but “academic responsibility”.
But the facts seem to point in the opposite direction. The controversy started after a video taken during McCoul’s class was shared on social media. In the video, a student claims that the class material being taught is illegal since it contains views on gender that are contrary to President Trump’s executive orders. The student further states that the course content goes against their religious beliefs. The video ends after the professor tells the student that they are welcome to bring this issue up with the department and that they are free to leave if they find the material uncomfortable. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, McCoul’s summer and fall courses focused on contemporary trends in children’s and young-adult literature, such as gender and sexuality. The university never elaborated on d how this material was not relevant to the subject of the course, which was the main reason cited for McCoul’s dismissal. Furthermore, McCoul’s lawyer stated that she was never instructed by the university to change the class content, contrary to what Texas A&M President Welsh claimed in his statement.
A more likely cause of McCoul’s dismissal seems to be political pressure. The classroom video showing the verbal exchange between McCoul and the student was shared on the social media platform X by a Republican representative in the Texas House of Representatives. A day after the video was shared, on September 9, Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott called for the termination of McCoul for having acted “contrary to Texas law”. While A&M President Welsh was initially opposed to McCoul being fired, as he told a student that the dismissal of McCoul was “not gonna happen” per an audio recording shared on September 8, he announced his decision to fire her hours after Abbott weighed in on the issue. According to The Texas Tribune, Texas politicians have been at odds with Welsh on a number of issues since he became the president of Texas A&M. For example, in January 2025, Abbott threatened to fire Welsh for having staff and PhD students attend a conference organized by The PhD Project, an organization dedicated to making doctoral education accessible to wider sections of society.
The fact that overt political pressure succeeded in getting a professor fired for classroom material is especially concerning for academic freedom since it violates the rights of professors to determine the content of their classes, as well as the principle of institutional autonomy that protects universities from political interference. Lily Kepner, a journalist reporting on Texas higher education for the news outlet Austin American-Statesman, stressed that this was the first time since 1917 that Texas state politicians tried to “fire professors at public universities who have views they disagree with” and that there was no law in Texas banning the teaching of gender and sexuality, contrary to the claims of the governor.
The dismissal of McCoul received widespread condemnation from free speech and civil rights groups and other civil society organizations. On September 11, 2025, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) described the process that led to the dismissal as a “serious violatio[n] of well-established standards and principles of academic freedom and tenure”, which have been laid out in the AAUP’s 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, and accepted by over 280 educational institutions across the US.
The AAUP statement did not only relate to Texas A&M. Similar condemnations were also extended to Texas State University over the dismissal of Thomas Alter. While McCoul’s case was based on classroom content, Alter’s dismissal is based on the professor’s statements outside of the classroom, which has increasingly become one of the main targets of efforts to undermine academic freedom.
On September 10, 2025, Texas State University president Kelly Damphousse announced that he has fired Professor Thomas Alter for statements he made at a conference that “advocate for inciting violence”, which he argued constitutes “serious professional and personal misconduct.” The statements in question were made by Professor Alter during a Revolutionary Socialism Conference at which Alter said that, “without organization, how can anyone expect to overthrow the most bloodthirsty, profit-driven, mad organization in the history of the world, that of the U.S. government?"
While McCoul was a senior lecturer at Texas A&M, Alter was a tenured professor at Texas State but even this did not prevent him from being dismissed without due process. In the context of a 2023 Texas law, professors at public universities can be fired on very vaguely defined conditions such as “serious professional or personal misconduct”, which was the cited reason in Alter’s case. However, professors are still entitled to a hearing where they can respond to the allegations raised against them, an opportunity that was not provided to Alter.
Texas politicians and universities have been quick to weaponize the “inciting violence” frame to launch attacks on academic freedom within the state, especially at public universities. On September 16, 2025, a student from Texas State University, the same institution from which Thomas Alter was fired, was expelled for alleged “behavior that mocks, trivializes, or promotes violence”, as announced by President Damphousse. The student was expelled after a video was shared online showing them imitating the assassination of far-right commentator Charlie Kirk and cursing at students gathered to mourn his death. Prior to the announcement of the expulsion, Texas governor Abbott shared a post on his social media account telling Texas State University to “Expel this student immediately.”
A day before the Texas State University student was expelled, on September 15, another student from Texas Tech University was expelled for engaging other students organizing a vigil for Kirk’s death, after a similar video was shared on X. The student was initially arrested on campus and charged with assault. In the video, the student does not appear to touch anyone. This student’s expulsion was similarly celebrated by Abbott.
A recent report by Politico lists several universities that have fired professors and/or staff over comments regarding Kirk’s assassination. The list includes Clemson University, Cumberland University, The University of Mississippi, and Middle Tennessee State University. Several of these institutions have acted against their employees in the context of a wider Republican effort to crack down on the opposition through Kirk’s assassination. Some House Republicans have called for universities to fire employees directly.
Unfortunately, the US government’s attack on higher education and academic freedom is continuing and some university administrations are actively participating in this campaign. Recently, it was reported that University of California, Berkeley provided the Department of Education with a list of 160 faculty members, students and staff to be investigated for potential acts of “antisemitism”. Reportedly, the university’s regular procedures for the handling of complaints, which gave faculty the opportunity to get information on complaints and respond to them, has been suspended and that all complaints were forwarded to the Department of Education directly.
Endangered Scholars Worldwide (ESW) unequivocally condemns attacks on academic freedom and strongly believes that higher education in the US. Universities should remain autonomous from direct political influence, especially regarding issues of speech and teaching, which are crucial pillars of academic freedom. We call on universities to immediately halt the penalization of faculty, students and staff for expressing their views, and the sanctioning of faculty based on the content of their teaching and research. We further call on US politicians to end their attempts to erode academic freedom. We invite the global community to join our call.
Comments