Texas A&M cuts LGBTQ studies and other programs

The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents last week directed the president of its flagship to end 52 low-enrollment programs, including a nascent LGBTQ studies minor that conservative state legislators have cast as “liberal indoctrination.”

Speculation around the dissolution of the LGBTQ studies minor has been swirling for months; in September, a conservative website reported that the university would end the program.

Faculty have staunchly opposed the move, voting earlier this month to reject the program cuts as proposed. University president Mark Welsh has registered his objections as well, asking that the “review process be halted and restarted to obtain input from the Faculty Senate,” according to board documents.

But facing sustained pressure from state lawmakers, the LGBTQ studies minor and other programs are now destined for abrupt elimination.

Political Pressure

After Texas A&M University launched the LGBTQ studies minor in fall 2022, the university issued a press release the following June—Pride Month—which called the new program a “major victory for LGBTQ+ scholars.”

But the minor quickly came under scrutiny from GOP lawmakers.

“Texas A&M is offering a MINOR in this?? What. The. Hell. I will be demanding answers from @tamu on why they think my constituents should be forced to subsidize this,” State Representative Brian Harrison, a Republican, wrote on social media in January, including a screenshot of the LGBTQ studies minor listing from the course catalog.

In subsequent posts, Harrison called the minor “liberal indoctrination” and promised to take it on in the next legislative session.

Last month, long before the Board of Regents met Thursday and slashed the programs, Harrison declared victory, noting that Texas A&M System chancellor John Sharp had told him the program would be axed.

In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Harrison—a Texas A&M graduate—said he was outraged to learn about the LGBTQ studies program at his alma mater and was “proud” to have ended it, arguing that it never should have been approved in the first place. Now he plans to go after the individual courses that are still being offered, including what he called an “alternative genders” class.

“If they’re going to keep that course, I want an official response from Texas A&M leadership,” Harrison said. “I want them to tell me exactly how many genders they believe exist, and I guarantee you, I’m going to formally request that they give me that answer in writing.”

He added that he plans to take aim at other LGBTQ+ programs at public universities across the state.

“I want to end all taxpayer-funded leftist propaganda in every single one of our public institutions of higher learning,” he said. “And if it takes extreme budget cuts to get their attention, so be it.”

Asked if Sharp and/or the Board of Regents struck a deal with Harrison to eliminate the program in order to avoid a showdown in the next legislative session, Texas A&M System spokesperson Laylan Copelin responded with a copy of the board’s resolution, which he said “speaks for itself.” Pressed further, Copelin responded, “There was no deal. The resolution reflects the Board’s thinking, and the Chancellor wasn’t involved in the university’s decision-making on this issue.”

Provost Alan Sams shared a different perspective at a Texas A&M Faculty Senate meeting last month, suggesting that outside influence prompted him to undertake the review that culminated in the program cutting.

“You’ve all seen the tweets and the articles and you know that we’ve heard from elected officials. We’ve been open about the fact that all those inquiries led us to examine how we’re evaluating the success of minors and certificates,” Sams told the Faculty Senate, conceding that he should have involved them in the review process at an earlier stage.

But Welsh indicated there were no politics at play, at least as far as he was concerned. Testifying Monday before a state Senate Subcommittee on Higher Education about the role of faculty senates at public universities, Welsh fielded questions from Democratic state senator Royce West, who asked if the deactivations “followed typical protocol.”

“It didn’t follow the typical protocol,” Welsh responded, adding that “it is not atypical” for regents to raise concerns about particular issues.

When West pressed Welsh, the president noted the university “had not completed the review process.” He said faculty members had expressed concern, leading him to believe “we should hit pause on the process” and begin anew in the spring with faculty input.

“Is there any politics involved in this?” West questioned.

“If there were politics, it wasn’t with my office,” said Welsh.

Faculty Fury

Chaitanya Lakkimsetti, a sociology professor at Texas A&M who helped develop the LGBTQ studies minor, told Inside Higher Ed that she was not surprised by the legislative scrutiny, “given the national context” of conservative attacks on higher education. But she was caught off guard by the way university officials responded. Like her fellow faculty members, she saw cutting the professoriate out of a curricular decision as an affront to shared governance.

She also worries about the larger implications for higher education.

“This is an attack, of course, on academic freedom, but it’s also an attack on critical thinking,” Lakkimsetti said, arguing that legislators like Harrison want to limit what subjects students can learn about.

While the decision-makers remain quiet, faculty have been seething over the program deactivations, arguing that the Board of Regents violated university processes on curricular changes and ignored state guidance that recommends giving new programs a five-year runway before reviewing them for low enrollment.

Texas A&M faculty have also accused the provost of cutting them out of the process and questioned his claims that the targeted programs are being eliminated for fiscal reasons.

In a Nov. 5 letter, Faculty Senate leaders noted that their executive committee had taken emergency action to reject the program cuts before the Board of Regents took it to a vote. They also made it clear that they viewed the deactivation process as a failure of shared governance.

“As the representative body of our Faculty, The Senate and its [Executive Committee] is deeply concerned for our University and the reputational risk that the Provost’s proposal represents,” Angie Hill Price, speaker of the Faculty Senate, wrote in a letter to the faculty. “The EC is concerned that The Board of Regents may not be fully aware of the deeply flawed process and the ramifications of the Provost’s decisions. We do not oppose the concept of a process, but we vehemently oppose the one that was implemented by the Provost with little consideration of the consequences.”

(Price did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.)

The Texas chapter of the American Association of University Professors also condemned the changes, writing on X, “We are deeply concerned that the @tamusystem board has decided to override the objections of faculty and students and eliminated more than 50 minors and certificates. Administrators should not be limiting the topics that students can study.”

Even as faculty fret, Harrison indicated that the fight is only beginning.

“There needs to be accountability,” he said, arguing that as Republican president-elect Donald Trump “reins in the rogue administrative state … Texas should lead by example.”

Asked how he would respond to faculty concerns about the loss of academic freedom, Harrison remained unmoved.

“Once I get done laughing, I would remind them that it is the people of the state of Texas that fund our public universities, and they are overtaxed, and they’re sick and tired of having their tax dollars weaponized against them and their values,” he said.