Texas A&M asked professor to remove Plato passages over 'gender ideology'

Martin Peterson, a Texas A&M philosophy professor, was presented last week with a choice to censor parts of his course that included readings from Plato or to teach a different class to comply with a prohibition on course materials that "advocate race or gender ideology," according to an opinion essay by Greg Lukianoff.

The course on contemporary moral issues uses classical ethical concepts to consider topics like the ethics of war, the death penalty and abortion and includes discussions related to race and gender. Dr. Peterson submitted his materials as part of an administrative review he described as "mandatory censorship," the essay says, and was told he could "mitigate" content by removing the modules on race ideology and gender ideology and the Plato readings that may include these.

The essay places the episode in a wider context: a bill passed last spring by the Texas Legislature that Lukianoff says undercut faculty control, Texas A&M system policy changes aimed at purging "woke" curricula, and sweeping reviews of course materials across multiple Texas public universities.

It cites reporting that administrators at the University of North Texas made more than 200 course changes, and notes a Texas Tech System memo warning faculty not to "promote or otherwise inculcate" specified viewpoints about race and sex.

Key Topics

Politics, Texas A&m University, Martin Peterson, Plato, Greg Lukianoff, Texas Legislature