Texas A&M professor files lawsuit after firing over gender identity lesson
HOUSTON– A Texas A&A university professor who was fired last year after controversy over a classroom video showing a student objecting to a children’s literature class about gender identity sued the school Wednesday, alleging the university violated his rights by bowing to political pressure calling for his ouster.
Melissa McCoul was a lecturer in the Department of English with over a decade of teaching experience. Republican lawmakers, including Gov. Greg Abbott, had called for her firing after seeing the video, which showed a student questioning whether last July’s class discussion was legal under President Donald Trump’s executive order on gender.
The video shook the campus and sparked strong criticism of university president Mark Welsh, who later resigned, but gave no reason and never mentioned the video in his resignation announcement.
The university upheld McCoul’s firing even after two separate, independent university groups determined Texas A&M violated his right to due process and had no grounds to terminate his employment.
“Today I did something that would have been inconceivable a year ago: I sued Texas A&M to hold him accountable for violations of my constitutional rights to free speech and due process. There is no satisfaction in doing this, only sadness,” McCoul said in a statement. The suit was filed in federal court in Houston.
Chris Bryan, Texas A vice chancellor of marketing and communications&M University System, said Wednesday that school officials were aware of the lawsuit but had not reviewed it.
“As this is ongoing litigation, we will not comment further, but we intend to vigorously defend against these claims,” Bryan said in a statement.
Named in the lawsuit as defendants were Welsh Acting President Tommy Williams, Texas A&University System M Chancellor Glenn Hegar and Texas A&M System Board of Directors.
After McCoul’s firing, Hegar ordered an audit of courses at the system’s 12 schools.
McCoul’s trial comes less than a week after Texas A&M University announced it was ending its women’s and gender studies program, changing the syllabi of hundreds of courses and canceling six courses as part of a new policy that limits how professors can discuss certain topics related to race and gender.
Other Texas university systems have also placed restrictions on classroom instruction or begun internal reviews of course offerings following a new state law.
In his lawsuit, McCoul pushed back against Texas A’s claims.&M that she did not follow instructions to modify the content of her course to align it with the course catalog description. McCoul said his course content was “100% aligned with the catalog description and the course description.”
“The proposed explanations for Dr. McCoul’s termination are inconsistent and absurd because they are false. Dr. McCoul was terminated because of the so-called ‘liberal,’ ‘woke’ themes she explored in her classes,” according to the lawsuit.
McCoul described teaching at Texas A&M as his “dream job”. She had been at the university since 2017. In her lawsuit, she seeks reinstatement and damages.
“Despite the way I was treated, I still love the institution, my former colleagues and the A students.&M. I hope this lawsuit makes the University think twice before treating others the same way,” McCoul said.
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