Texas A&M Professor Sues Over Firing Tied to Gender‑Identity Lesson

Texas A&M senior English lecturer Melissa McCoul has filed a federal lawsuit in Houston alleging the university violated her First Amendment and due‑process rights when it fired her last year after a viral classroom video showed a student objecting to a children’s literature lesson about gender identity under President Donald Trump’s executive order. McCoul’s July 2025 lesson became a political flashpoint after Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republicans publicly demanded her termination, and she was dismissed even though two separate internal A&M review bodies later concluded the university had denied her due process and lacked cause to fire her. The suit names as defendants former Texas A&M president Mark Welsh, who resigned amid the controversy, interim president Tommy Williams, system chancellor Glenn Hegar and the Board of Regents, and it seeks reinstatement plus monetary damages. McCoul insists her syllabus was "100 percent aligned" with the course catalog and says she was punished for exploring themes derided as "liberal" or "woke," while the university, which just announced the elimination of its women’s and gender studies degrees and broad syllabus changes under a new law limiting race and gender instruction, says it will "vigorously defend" against her claims. The case now becomes a key early test of how far state officials and governing boards can go in enforcing new ideological limits in college classrooms before colliding with faculty speech protections in federal court.