Banning Race and Gender Topics from Classrooms Undermines Viewpoint Diversity and Open Inquiry

The new Texas A&M System policy stifles expression and violates academic freedom.

The Texas A&M University system’s board recently voted unanimously to institute a blanket ban on certain topics in college courses. The policy reads, “No system academic course will advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity, unless the course and the relevant course materials are approved in advance by the member CEO.”

This comes on the heels of A&M firing lecturer Melissa McCoul after a viral video surfaced from her classroom. It also follows other attempts in states like Florida and Ohio to police what professors can teach or say in their courses also with a particular aim at left-wing coded identity related concepts. HxA’s stance on these bans and restrictions has not changed: we view them as a violation of academic freedom and counterproductive to building cultures of open inquiry on campus.

Digging further into the A&M policy, you might be wondering what it means for a course to “advocate” for gender or race ideologies, and how those ideologies are defined. The university system board offers vague definitions, such as the one for gender.

“Gender Ideology means a concept of self-assessed gender identity replacing, and disconnected from, the biological category of sex.”

The policy leaves ambiguous whether merely acknowledging the existence of transgender individuals (i.e., people who identify with a gender that is different from their birth sex) amounts to “gender ideology.” Or instead does it mean that “gender ideology” is a framework by which self-assessed gender identity is more important than, and should supersede, biological sex? The policy doesn’t specify that exactly–and that may be intentional to scare instructors off from discussing these topics lest they face repercussions.

The policy offers similarly vague definitions of “race ideology”:

“Race Ideology means a concept that attempts to shame a particular race or ethnicity, accuse them of being oppressors in a racial hierarchy or conspiracy, ascribe to them less value as contributors to society and public discourse because of their race or ethnicity, or assign them intrinsic guilt based on the actions of their presumed ancestors or relatives in other areas of the world. This also includes course content that promotes activism on issues related to race or ethnicity, rather than academic instruction.”

We can imagine faculty being accused of “attempts to shame” – an undefined term – who would argue that they’re doing no such thing. In the context of learning about or discussing race/ethnicity, some students may happen to feel negative emotions as a result of learning something unpleasant about history or current events. That is not necessarily the result of the faculty member’s teaching but can be an authentic response to the realities of the world. Furthermore, while banning instructors from assigning students to engage in certain types of non-academic activism (e.g., giving students extra credit for participating in a protest) would be appropriate, but in this policy, “promoting activism” remains a vague concept.

This policy has a number of problems from academic freedom violations to deeper campus culture issues. An outright ban on discussing any topics in classrooms will do more harm than good as far as healthy academic norms and campus culture. The policy also mentions a reporting mechanism whereby students can report their professors for teaching “inaccurate or misleading course content.”

It remains to be seen how this will affect faculty or curricula. Reactions thus far have been mostly negative, with some instructors implying they won’t be able to do their jobs effectively under this restriction. Some courses may be cancelled or at the least reviewed to ensure that they are in compliance with the new policy.

But perhaps an even worse outcome may be the chilling effect on academic freedom and inquiry. Many faculty will reasonably refrain from engaging students in thoughtful discussions on these topics as they relate to their courses merely because they are afraid of repercussions if they run afoul of the policy. Nor does the A&M system clarify whether faculty members are allowed to even present views on “race or gender ideologies” while at the same time presenting counterpoints or opposing perspectives which might challenge them – an approach quite inclusive for viewpoint diversity!

If the concern is that students are selectively exposed to only certain types of viewpoints on race and gender to the exclusion of others (i.e., the liberal indoctrination hypothesis), then we should reintroduce legitimate-but-neglected perspectives. But the Texas A&M policy ban makes clear references to the discomfort of students with words like “shame” and “guilt” as justifications for these heavy handed prohibitions. This policy echoes the very same psychological safetyism that we have seen previously from the political left.

Rather than unnecessarily restricting open inquiry and constructive disagreement in our classrooms, we want to empower faculty and students to ask challenging questions and have difficult discussions in the pursuit of truth and knowledge, even if doing so makes people in the classroom feel sometimes uncomfortable. Discomfort is not the goal, but at the same time discomfort should not stand in the way of valuable insights.

As in other cases of classroom bans, we oppose policies such as this new Texas A&M policy, specifically because such bans do the opposite of what higher education was designed and purposed to do: be a space where students and professors can engage thoughtfully with any and all topics related to their courses. Bans on course content and concepts undermine the foundation of open intellectual inquiry that should characterize our campuses and classrooms. We must vigorously resist initiatives at any level that seek to ban, censor, or narrow the spectrum of ideas available for academic instruction.