Texas A&M discontinues women’s studies program, citing lack of interest

Texas A&M University has ended its women’s and gender studies program in a move one professor says represents a “chilling message to the faculty that we were engaging in woke ideology.” In an analysis of the decision, New York University’s First Amendment Watch notes that the policy may be the first time a public university system in Texas has restricted what instructors can say in a classroom due to new state policies regarding race and gender topics. The university says low enrollment, not ideology, led to the decision. This “is quite literally erasing the experiences of people of color, the LGBTQ+ community,” said the professor, Leonard Bright, president of the American Association of University Professors A&M chapter, who teaches in the Bush School of Government and Public Service.