A Texas A&M student whistleblower recently provided Republican state Rep. Brian Harrison with video evidence that she was thrown out of a children’s literature class for objecting to a woke instructor’s propagation of perverse gender ideology and DEI.
The whistleblower provided Harrison not only with offending course materials and audio from her disheartening conversation about the propagandist with Texas A&M President Gen. Mark Welsh but with emails from the English department head, who spoke of an apparent deal to keep the student out of the class.
Harrison, certain the controversy over the taxpayer-funded propaganda would have otherwise been swept under the rug, brought the matter to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s attention as well as to the attention of the Trump administration, demanding immediate action.
Things have since gone sideways for the indoctrinator central to the story as well as for her enablers.
While two people have already been removed from their positions, this controversy is far from settled.
In addition to the university’s Board of Regents asking Texas A&M University System Chancellor Glenn Hegar to “audit every course and ensure full compliance with all applicable laws,” which might flush out more propagandists, there are now calls for Welsh’s removal.
“America and Texans can now see how dishonest and how liberal the leadership of this once great university is,” Harrison said. “We need a lot of people to be fired, and we need a lot of budgets to be cut so that Texas can lead the nation once again.”
How it started
Senior lecturer Melissa McCoul, whose stated areas of research include “gender studies,” can be heard discussing “gender and sexuality” at the outset of the video captured by the student whistleblower.
A slide titled “Gender Unicorn” can be seen projected at the front of class. This Trans Student Educational Resources graphic suggests that so-called gender identity and gender expression are distinct from sex assigned at birth and that there are sexes besides male, female, and intersex.
‘You are under a misconception that what I am saying is illegal.’
According to TSER, this graphic was created as an alternative to “The Genderbread Person” to better reflect “genders outside of the western gender binary.”
Harrison obtained other instructional materials from the children’s literature course that indicate the gender unicorn was by no means the most provocative piece of gender agitprop pushed in the class.
For instance, one slide emphasized that it’s not “too ‘adult’” to talk to young children about “queerness” and complained that “heteronormativity leads to compulsory heterosexuality.” There were also DEI and critical race theory materials in the class.
When McCoul proceeded to the next slide, which was titled “TRANS REP,” the student whistleblower spoke up: “I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching because according to our president, there’s only two genders, and he said that he would be freezing agencies funding programs that promote gender ideology.”
“This also very much goes against, not only myself, but a lot of people’s religious beliefs,” the student continued. “And so I am not going to participate in this because it’s not legal, and I don’t want to promote something that is against our president’s laws as well as against my religious beliefs.”
McCoul said in response, “You are under a misconception that what I am saying is illegal.”
When the student pushed back, volunteering to read President Donald Trump’s executive order concerning the government’s recognition of two sexes, male and female, the lecturer said, “You do have the right to leave. What we are doing is not illegal, and if you would like to make the claim that it is, you need to talk to the department head.”
McCoul further expressed doubt that the student would be “effective in stopping me from teaching things that are biologically true because I do have the legal and ethical authority, … and it’s time for you to leave.”
“It took tremendous courage for a relatively young lady to stand up to an authority figure alone as a sole voice in that class — to somebody who had the potential to fail her, to harm her professionally,” Harrison told Blaze News. “And she had the courage not just to stand up to the professor but to take her concerns all the way to the president of the university and to have the foresight to record him.”
‘I know for a fact that Texas A&M knew about this for a long time.’
An audio recording obtained by Harrison allegedly captures Welsh, Barack Obama’s chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, shutting down the possibility of McCoul’s termination and acknowledging that other students took issue with McCoul’s instruction.
“You’re trying to pick a fight here. What do you want?” Welsh appears to say in the recording.
“I’m not trying to pick a fight,” the student whistleblower responds. “No, sir, I’m not.”
After the student confirms that she is seeking McCoul’s ouster, Welsh appears to say, “Okay, well, that’s not happening.”
Blaze News has reached out to Welsh for comment.
Harrison, who also obtained audio of the university president apparently indicating that he supports the development of new LGBT courses, said that Welsh’s response was “condescending.”
“I know for a fact that Texas A&M knew about this for a long time, that they covered it up, and then, instead of punishing the professor and the department head and the president, the leadership of Texas A&M concocted what was basically a cover-up scheme,” Harrison said. “They offered the student a deal to keep her quiet.”
Screenshots of emails between the head of the English department, Emily Johansen, and the student, show that Johansen: flagged the student’s “disruptive behavior”; referenced McCoul’s request that the student “no longer attend class sessions for the rest of the semester”; suggested the student’s in-class recordings were unacceptable; and alluded to a deal whereby the student could keep her grade but no longer attend the class.
“They tried to silence her, and they tried to keep the public from ever seeing that video,” Harrison said.
On Sunday, the conservative representative asked Gov. Abbott to take action and asked for the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services to “take any appropriate action(s) to ensure that Texas universities receiving federal funds are complying with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
Blaze News has reached out to McCoul, Johansen, the HHS, the Education Department, and Vickie Spillers, the executive director of the Texas A&M Board of Regents, for comment. Abbott’s office referred Blaze News to his tweets on X regarding the topic.
How it’s going
Hours after Harrison went scorched-earth on Texas A&M, Welsh announced that he had directed the provost to immediately remove the College of Arts and Sciences dean and the English department head from their administrative positions.
“Good,” Gov. Abbott responded. “Now, fire the professor who acted contrary to Texas law.”
The following day, Welsh claimed in an update that after it became clear that the children’s literature course “contained content that did not align with any reasonable expectation of standard curriculum for the course, … college and department leadership worked with students to offer alternative opportunities for students to complete the course, and made changes to ensure this course content does not continue in future semesters.”
‘The president of the university must be fired.’
According to Welsh, he only learned on Monday that “the college continued to teach content that was inconsistent with the published course description for another course this fall.”
Welsh further indicated in the update that Texas A&M “abides by state and federal law” and that he had both fired the professor and tasked department heads with conducting an audit of course offerings to ensure they align with the course descriptions.
The university system’s board of regents also announced it had asked Texas A&M Chancellor Glenn Hegar to “audit every course and ensure full compliance with all applicable laws.”
Alvin Lui, president of the parental rights advocacy group Courage Is a Habit, cast doubt on the value of these audits — audits Harrison deemed “pathetic.”
“It doesn’t matter what the curriculum says when you have these teachers that are trained at woke teacher colleges, and all teacher colleges are woke,” Lui said. “They teach everything through the lens of a Marxist. They teach everything through the lens of a critical race theorist or a queer theorist. So it doesn’t matter what the syllabus says. It doesn’t matter what the course catalog says.”
Not enough
When asked whether the terminations of the two administrators and the lecturer were sufficient, Harrison told Blaze News, “Absolutely not. Not even close. A fish rots from the head.”
“I’m a proud member of the fighting Texas Aggie class of 2004, and it’s obvious now that I care more about Texas A&M than the leadership of Texas A&M does,” the Republican state representative continued. “We have a code of honor: Aggies do not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do, and if the president of Texas A&M cannot abide by that code of conduct himself, that’s more than sufficient grounds to fire him.”
“This is a taxpayer-funded employee of the state of Texas,” Harrison continued. “The people of the state of Texas are being taxed out of their homes, and they damn well don’t want their money weaponized against them, their children, and their values to promote leftist indoctrination. The president of the university must be fired.”
‘Don’t believe your child is safe from the woke mind virus spreading on college campuses just because they’re in a state like Texas.’
Harrison suggested further that Texas A&M is not the only university in the state infected by DEI and gender ideology.
“Almost every single public university has an entire — not just a class or two — an entire undergraduate minor program in LGBTQ transgender studies. People think we’re the bastion of bold Republican leadership. That’s a myth,” Harrison said. “The Texas Republican leadership in this state is weak, establishment, liberal, progressive.”
When asked about next steps, Harrison referred Blaze News to his letter to Abbott where he asked the governor to direct his politically appointed regents at all of Texas’ public universities to immediately “take all necessary action” to purge all remaining DEI and LGBT propaganda instruction and activities. In the letter, he also asked Abbott to call back the legislature for a special session to pass a total ban on such indoctrination within any state agency.
Corey DeAngelis, a senior fellow at the American Culture Project and a visiting fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, told Blaze News, “DEI ideology needs to DIE. Gender ideology must be rooted out of all academic institutions if we want our country to return to sanity. The university radicals want to continue pushing our society off the rails, but we can save America by letting sane people take the wheel.”
“This incident proves red states are not immune from woke ideology. Don’t believe your child is safe from the woke mind virus spreading on college campuses just because they’re in a state like Texas,” DeAngelis continued. “The socialists infiltrate academia to brainwash your kids and advance their agenda. We must all be vigilant and fight back against the lunacy at our universities,” DeAngelis added.
Lui noted that Americans are mistaken in thinking that the president’s executive orders and laws alone will neutralize leftist indoctrination efforts. Instead, Lui suggested that Americans and American institutions must take proactive steps as the student whistleblower had in this case, using policy and laws as tools on the offensive.
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The post ‘Fish rots from the head’: Student claims some scalps after exposing trans propaganda at Texas A&M — but the fight’s not over appeared first on TheBlaze.
