The Texas A&M chapter of the American Association of University Professors, or AAUP, held a press conference at Academic Plaza alongside A&M’s chapter of MOVE Texas to condemn attacks on academic freedom and course cancellation on Thursday, Jan. 22. 

Faculty speakers at the conference included professor and President of A&M’s AAUP chapter Leonard Bright, Ph.D., philosophy professor Martin Peterson, Ph.D. and associate professor Joan Wolf, Ph.D. Civil engineering senior and Vice President of the A&M chapter of MOVE Texas Robert Day and sociology sophomore Leah Tolan also joined the panel.

“Today we demand that Texas A&M ends classroom censorship immediately, restore academic freedom to the faculty, reinstate improperly cancelled courses, let Plato out of his cage, guarantee truthful, rigorous education for our students, end all retaliation against faculty who refuse to voluntarily censor their courses, return circular authority back to the educators, back to the experts, to the faculty, protect the value in credibility of Texas A&M’s degrees and reaffirm its commitment to all of Texans,” Bright said at the press conference.

The conference comes in the wake of A&M’s recent efforts to alter over 200 core courses for undergraduate students, some of which were announced after the start of the spring semester, complicating students’ schedules and outlook for the semester. 

AAUP President Todd Wolfson issued a statement on Jan. 12 condemning censorship at A&M, stating, “This censorship goes far beyond what is required by Senate Bill 37 and Texas A&M system policies.” He further claimed, “A college or university of this sort harms its students, faculty, and traditions, and consequently can no longer be regarded as a serious institution of higher learning.”

On Jan. 9, A&M forced Peterson to remove a reading of Plato’s “Symposium” from the syllabus of one of his philosophy courses, stating that, if he refused to comply, he would be reassigned to an upper level course. 

“[Syllabi] exist to reduce confusion for students, not to enforce political control,” Day said. “As Aggies, we should not be afraid to speak out against administrators who are tempting to impose a narrow, externally audited version of what education should look like.”

Then, on Jan. 15, The Texas Tribune reported A&M’s decision to cancel Bright’s graduate ethics course three days after the spring semester began. 

“This policy has also weaponized and targeted faculty who refuse to voluntarily participate in censorship; that is exactly what happened to me,” Bright said. “My graduate ethics course in public policy was canceled based on a flimsy and false claim that I failed to provide sufficient detail about how I would discuss some of the most important topics in my field. … When a university censors topics involving race, gender, sexuality, power and inequity, they are not protecting students, they are underpreparing them.”