A&M ending LGBTQ+ studies program
Lily Kepner
Austin American-Statesman USA TODAY NETWORK
After months of growing pressure from conservative Republicans demanding that Texas A&M University drop its LGBTQ+ studies minor, the university announced late last month that it plans to end the program due to low enrollment.
“In June 2023, inquiries around the LGBTQ minor that had only a few enrolled students prompted the university to examine its programs and identify 70 certificates and minors that had no or very few graduates or enrollees,” said a university statement shared by spokesperson Kelly Brown.
In January, state Rep. Brian Harrison, a Republican from Midlothian, about 165 miles north of the university, publicly decried Texas A&M’s LGBTQ+ studies minor on X, promising that he “will be demanding answers” on why it was being offered and “why my constituents should be forced to subsidize this.” The next month, in another post on X, Harrison said he spoke with Texas A&M leaders, who told him the school was spending state resources on the program.
“Outrageous,” he wrote in his Feb. 15 post, before promising to find “legislative remedies.”
Then on Sept. 26, he helped break the news that Texas A&M had decided to stop offering the minor.
“After months of calling for A&M to end this absurd program, I was pleased to learn from Chancellor (John) Sharp they plan to end it. Proud to have helped deliver this victory for Texas taxpayers, who should never be forced to fund liberal indoctrination,” he said.
“Queer history is a part of American history, and you can’t have one without the other.”
Elsie Kindall
Government affairs associate at the LGBTQ+ advocacy nonprofit Equality Texas
On Wednesday, however, 30 faculty members unanimously voted to oppose the sudden inactivation request for the LGBTQ+ studies minor from their dean. Faculty members told the American-Statesman that the inactivation request was initiated top-down, putting into question what will happen when the action is in conflict with the shared governance procedures inscribed in the university’s standard administrative policy.
In its Sept. 27 statement, the university downplayed the political push to end the LGBTQ+ studies minor, saying it plans to inactivate 51 other certificates and minors “due to low numbers of students graduated and enrolled.”
“At the same time the thresholds and process were being established, the provost spoke with Rep. Harrison about the LGBTQ minors,” the statement said. “The university is committed to developing credentials of value across all academic programs.”
Brown, the university spokeswoman, said that the inactivation requests must go through other rounds of approval, so they’re “not yet final.” Brown said any courses related to those subjects as well as university personnel would not be affected by the decisions. She declined to provide a list of the programs put up for inactivation until after they appear before the Faculty Senate later this month.
Provost Alan Sams declined an interview with the Statesman but said in a statement sent by Brown that the full review of the inactivation requests will allow for shared governance. Brown did not respond to follow-up questions asking what will happen if faculty members reject the requests.
Theresa Morris, a sociology professor and program director of the women and gender studies program, which oversaw the LGBTQ+ minor, said she felt “blindsided” when asked to inactivate the program. She does not recall a provost, the second-highest administrative official at the university, ever making such decisions unilaterally, she said.
The minor was created in 2022, when it was praised in a 2023 article on Texas A&M’s website. It was “a formal recognition by the university that this is important, and that can mean a lot to the people who feel that their experience has been peripheralized by society,” Morris said in the piece.
Though a spokesperson for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board confirmed the board has no oversight over enrollment minimums for minors, the Texas A&M Council of Deans formed a subcommittee tasked with identifying “the thresholds and process for lowproducing minors and certificates,” the statement said.
Brown said the minimum threshold was set at 10 graduates in the past two years or a current-year enrollment of at least five students for undergraduate certificates and minors.
“The university plans to repeat this process annually when Texas A&M conducts the THECB productivity review for all majors,” she said.
The provost has given direction to “kindly refrain” from enrolling new students in the minor, Morris said, though the process for inactivation has not been officially completed or approved by faculty members. But with new inquiries in September, the LGBTQ+ studies minor would have had enough students to meet the enrollment threshold, she said.
The department was not notified of the new enrollment thresholds before the notice of inactivation was sent, and the university would not disclose who was on the committee that developed them, she said.
“The concern we have as a program is that curricular decisions should not be confidential in our understanding of the way decisions are made at universities,” Morris said. “We’ve never heard of any minor being cut. The curricular changes, even by accreditation, belong to the faculty.”
Where is this pressure coming from?
With just months before the start of the next legislative session, the state has pushed for academic credentials of value — a degree or certificate in a field aligned with Texas workforce needs that also has a positive return on investment for the student. In his statement, Sams, Texas A&M’s provost, said that eliminating minors with low enrollment “is one step in that process” of further investing in such credentials.
On Sept. 10, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick released two new interim charges for the Senate Higher Education Subcommittee focused on curriculum. The first, titled “Stopping DEI to Strengthen the Texas Workforce,” seeks to emphasize these workforce certificates while eliminating programs and curriculum related to diversity, equity and inclusion, which Patrick’s charge called discriminatory.
In 2023, the Texas Senate, which Patrick oversees, passed Senate Bill 16, which prohibited professors from “compelling” students to adopt a certain belief. The proposal died in the Texas House Higher Education Committee.
The Legislature in the last session passed Senate Bill 17, which barred diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at public institutions of higher education, but academic courses and research were spared from the prohibition. Opponents of the law and rights advocates cautioned that SB 17 would eliminate protections against the historic exclusion of students of color and those who are LGBTQ+.
Brian Evans, president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, said Texas A&M’s decision to end its LGBTQ+ studies minor seems to align with a national trend to narrow curriculum, seemingly going against shared governance principles.
“The announcement by the Texas A&M University Provost appears to be a part of a broader trend of college and university administrations in many states trying to narrow what students can study, especially but not only with regard to race, gender, sexuality, and inequality, instead of expanding opportunities for student learning and growth advocated by students and faculty,” Evans told the Statesman in a statement.
The Battalion, Texas A&M’s student newspaper, reported that in addition to the LGBTQ+ studies minor, the university is also proposing to cut a communications certificate on diversity and social justice and an Asian studies minor. Texas Scorecard reported that certificates for popular culture and performing social activism in the College of Performance also are on the chopping block.
In a phone interview with the Statesman, Harrison, who is a Texas A&M alumnus, emphasized that his reasons for “pounding the drum” against the LGBTQ+ studies minor for nine months was due to his fiduciary responsibility to ensure public money is used efficiently.
When asked how much money he expected Texas A&M’s programming cuts to save, he said he did not know.
“When (Texans) have to pay their part of earning dollars to government for the purpose of education, we need to make sure those dollars are being used to train the workforce for tomorrow and not for wasteful liberal indoctrination. That’s what those courses are,” Harrison said, adding that it’s “fine” if people want to take those courses, but it should be “on their own dime.”
Harrison said he also hopes to eliminate the classes behind these minors and to ensure “accountability” for the courses Texas universities and colleges launch.
“To be clear, I would oppose a course on heterosexuality as well,” he said, denying claims from Democrats that he is anti-LGBTQ+.
Harrison said he doesn’t think Texas A&M would have made the decision to cut the minor without his advocacy.
‘Make a niche’: Why are academic minors created?
Creating the LGBTQ+ studies minor, Morris said, was a yearlong process passed with enthusiasm from faculty members and students. Though Texas A&M will still offer courses on the subject, Morris said the minor was a way all the relevant classes were composed in a joint curriculum and landing space, creating a “liberal arts experience” for students at a very large university.
“The minor really allows students to make a niche for themselves, either for their occupation or professional or graduate school,” Morris said. “What we’ve heard from students is that minors can really help them, because it is reflected on the transcript as a specialization.”
Elsie Kindall, government affairs associate at the LGBTQ+ advocacy nonprofit Equality Texas, has campaigned against anti-LGBTQ+ legislation at the Capitol. They said that curriculum has been targeted at the K-12 level, but not in higher education.
“The bills across the states that are censoring about race, queerness, and even social-emotional learning in the K-12 space, now we’re seeing these ideas transferred to the higher ed space,” Kindall said. “What that will end up impacting is student performance, retention, and also even warning off others who are interested in Texas colleges.”
The political pressure, such as what Texas A&M was under, is part of a national trend of limiting curriculum and access to diverse points of views, Courtnay Avant, senior legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, said. Of the more than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills filed in state legislatures across the country last year, more than a third targeted education, she said.
“This idea that the university is removing programs just because of low enrollment, I think it’s something that we really need to reel in, and I don’t think that that is the truth,” Avant said. “I think, unfortunately, that decision is ultimately being made because of pressure from these politicians who want to erase and marginalize LGBTQ+ people.”
The danger is affecting students directly, Avant said. The Trevor Project, a suicide and crisis intervention nonprofit for LGBTQ+ youths, has seen an increase in calls from transgender and nonbinary people, she said.
What is next for higher education in Texas?
Texas Scorecard, a watchdog conservative outlet associated with two powerfully influential West Texas billionaires, has consistently called out Texas A&M for its support of LGBTQ+ and diverse students and courses, and this isn’t the first time the institution has appeared to notice.
The university stopped providing gender-affirming health care to trans students in August after Texas Scorecard in February accused the school of pushing “transgender ideology.” The summer before that, Texas A&M botched its hiring of UT journalism professor Kathleen McElroy after Texas Scorecard published an article about her work’s focus on race, accusing her of being a “DEI hire,” ultimately resulting in the school paying her a $1 million settlement.
Kindall said these attacks against LGBTQ people and diversity are not new but are repeated and have expanded from past pressure campaigns.
“Texas A&M is once again caving to the state pressure in a campaign against queer students,” Kindall said. “Queer history is a part of American history, and you can’t have one without the other.”
Avant said she expects more bills will be filed in the next legislative session that target DEI, LGBTQ+ topics and diversity in curriculum. She is encouraging people to stay informed about the Legislature’s actions, testify at the Capitol and call their lawmakers to make their voices heard.
“Everyone deserves to see themselves reflected in their curriculum, in the books they read; and removing access to materials, to programs that are reflecting, affirming other people’s experiences, no matter who they are, how much money they make, who they love, it’s unconscionable,” Avant said. “I urge people to remember that these attentions are really nothing more than attempts to sanitize history and diminish representation of our communities.”
Harrison said he expects that in the next session, “perhaps for the first time,” lawmakers will look very closely at how higher education institutions are spending money.
Patrick, who has asked the Senate Higher Education Subcommittee to respond to his new interim charges by December, did not respond to a Statesman request for an interview.
Morris said that an open letter from students is circulating that asks for the minor to stay in place, and that the Faculty Senate will meet in mid-October to deliberate about the inactivation requests.
“Curricular decisions should never be confidential or secret, and I feel like that’s where we’re at right now,” Morris said. “It’s a huge sense of uncertainty about what happens to this minor, and it’s hard because students are asking us about it, and all I can say is, ‘Be patient and see what happens.’”
