Texas A&M Panel Finds Lecturer’s Summary Firing Over Gender-Identity Lesson Unjustified

An internal Texas A&M committee has concluded that the university improperly dismissed senior English lecturer Melissa McCoul after controversy erupted over a children’s literature lesson addressing gender identity. The committee unanimously determined that McCoul’s summary dismissal was not justified, finding university officials failed to follow required procedures and did not show good cause for termination.

The committee’s recommendation is nonbinding and has been delivered to interim President Tommy Williams, who will review the report and decide whether to accept the panel’s findings in the coming days or weeks. The recommendation itself does not automatically reinstate McCoul.

McCoul, a lecturer with more than a decade of teaching experience, had been teaching a children’s literature course that included several LGBTQ+ titles. A short video clip posted online showed a student questioning whether a classroom discussion about gender identity was permitted under an executive order from the previous presidential administration; the exchange escalated when McCoul asked the student to leave the class.

Following the episode, political officials including Gov. Greg Abbott publicly demanded McCoul’s dismissal. Recordings later posted online captured the student’s meeting with then-university president Mark Welsh; in those recordings Welsh defended McCoul’s instruction. Welsh has since resigned from his post, though his resignation did not cite the classroom incident.

University administrators said at the time of the dismissal that McCoul had continued to teach material they considered outside the reasonable expectations and catalog descriptions for the course. McCoul’s attorney, Amanda Reichek, disputed those claims and said McCoul was never instructed to revise her syllabus or course materials. Reichek also suggested the stated reasons for the firing were a pretext and that political pressure influenced the decision.

“Dr. McCoul asserts that the flimsy reasons proffered by A&M for her termination are a pretext for the University’s true motivation: capitulation to Governor Abbott’s demands,” Reichek said in a statement.

The incident prompted immediate changes at the university level: the Board of Regents adopted new rules requiring faculty to obtain presidential approval before teaching certain race- and gender-related topics and prohibiting courses from advocating "race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity" without prior approval from a campus president.

The McCoul dispute is part of a broader trend of conservative scrutiny of higher education, with universities nationwide facing criticism and policy pressure over diversity, equity and inclusion programs and how they handle campus controversies.