A former Texas A&M University faculty member who was fired after she discussed gender identity during a lesson filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday, moving a clash over academic freedom into a courtroom.
The lecturer, Melissa McCoul, displayed a gender unicorn, which is used to explain the differences between gender expression and gender identity, during a children’s literature class last July.
Dr. McCoul’s lawsuit accuses university officials of capitulating to political pressure in September after a state legislator posted a video of a confrontation between the lecturer and a student over the lesson.
Dr. McCoul was out of a job the next day.
“There can be no question Dr. McCoul was terminated based on the exercise of her right to academic freedom,” her lawyer, Amanda Reichek, wrote in Wednesday’s court filing. “The subject matter that the student, and then the university, found problematic was germane to her lesson, consistent with the syllabus, the course description and the catalog description.”
In her syllabus, Dr. McCoul had said the course was among those at A&M intended to “focus on how ideas, values, beliefs and other aspects of culture express and affect human experience.”
Dr. McCoul also accused the university of defying her due process rights when it moved so quickly to fire her. Misgivings about the university’s approach contributed, in part, to a November ruling by a university appeals panel that A&M was “not justified” when it dismissed Dr. McCoul.
Despite that decision, the A&M system in December denied Dr. McCoul’s request for reinstatement.
Neither the university nor the A&M system immediately commented on Wednesday’s lawsuit, which was filed in Federal District Court in Houston. The suit seeks, among other things, punitive damages and a judgment that Dr. McCoul was “terminated for exercising her academic freedom as guaranteed to her by the First Amendment.” She is also asking for her job back.
“There’s no satisfaction in doing this, only sadness,” Dr. McCoul said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that she hoped the litigation would “cause the university to think twice about treating others similarly.”
Dr. McCoul brought her case five days after A&M acknowledged that administrators and faculty members had modified hundreds of syllabuses for this semester to comply with new rules limiting how gender and race may be discussed in classrooms. The system first approved the new rules in November, when a regent said it had recently “become clear” that some courses were covering topics beyond what administrators envisioned.
The university’s interim president, Tommy Williams, also cited the new policy last Friday when he announced plans to shut down the women’s and gender studies program.
Mr. Williams, a Republican former state legislator, took over the A&M presidency in October. He succeeded Mark Welsh, who stepped down days after Dr. McCoul’s ouster.
Dr. McCoul’s lawsuit contends that her firing was the result of an onslaught of political pressure.
According to Dr. McCoul, the university supported her during an initial July skirmish over a presentation slide from the course. But later in the month, a student spoke up during class in an exchange that was recorded on video.
“I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching because, according to our president, there’s only two genders,” the student, referring to President Trump, said in the video.
Dr. McCoul listened briefly before replying, “You are under a misconception that what I’m saying is illegal.”
Dr. McCoul’s lawsuit said the student “appeared to be reading from a script while video recording.”
Mr. Welsh, a former Air Force chief of staff who became university president in 2023, sometimes appeared to defend Dr. McCoul when he spoke privately with the student after the episode, according to a recording of the conversation released by State Representative Brian Harrison.
Within weeks, though, Dr. McCoul’s suit says, the student complained to Mr. Welsh about planned content for a different course that Dr. McCoul was slated to teach. In response, the administration assigned Dr. McCoul to another course and, her suit says, she “assumed the events of that summer were behind her.”
But in early September, Mr. Harrison posted the video of Dr. McCoul’s clash with the student about the gender unicorn. Mr. Welsh swiftly announced that he had ordered the demotions of a dean and department head. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas publicly responded: “Good. Now fire the professor who acted contrary to Texas law.”
Dr. McCoul was fired soon after. In her filing on Wednesday, she said A&M, depending on whether officials were speaking in formal correspondence or on social media, had given “inconsistent and nonsensical” explanations for her dismissal.
Mr. Welsh, who is among the defendants named in the lawsuit, could not immediately be reached for comment. Under the terms of Mr. Welsh’s separation agreement with A&M, which included a lump-sum payment of more than $3.5 million, the university is supposed to ask the state attorney general’s office to represent him in litigation related to his tenure.
Alan Blinder is a national correspondent for The Times, covering education.
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