AAUP President Todd Wolfson released the following statement:
The AAUP condemns Texas A&M University’s decision to censor over 200 undergraduate core courses, including texts by Plato and fictional texts featuring LGBTQ protagonists and themes. This censorship goes far beyond what is required by Senate Bill 37 and Texas A&M system policies. While new system policies prevent faculty from “advocating” for so-called racial and gender ideologies, it is intellectually dishonest and patently false to equate the rigorous analysis of competing interpretations with ideological indoctrination. Faculty are trained to facilitate critical analysis, not to manufacture consensus or dictate personal belief.
Censoring Plato is an academic absurdity and a textbook violation of academic freedom. Barring a foundational philosopher who is a cornerstone of Western thought because his work touches on race or gender is a blatant attempt at thought policing that will not survive legal scrutiny. This is a direct attack on professional integrity and a clear-cut breach of constitutionally protected academic freedom.
There are moral and pedagogical stakes for this form of censorship. Silencing 2,500-year-old ideas from one of the world’s most influential thinkers betrays the mission of higher education and denies students the opportunity to engage critically with the foundations of Western thought. Equally problematic (if not more so) is the selective suppression of scholarly discussion around race, gender, and sexuality. These topics are central to understanding human experience, social power, and democratic life. A university that censors Plato—as well as other significant texts—abandons its obligation to truth, free inquiry, and the public trust. Such an institution is abdicating its responsibility to support students’ right to learn and faculty’s right to teach. It prevents faculty from guiding students in the development and exercise of critical thinking. 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.