Texas A&M Professor Ordered to Drop Plato Texts Touching on Same-Sex Love Under New “Race and Gender Ideology” Rules

Texas A&M University has told philosophy professor Martin Peterson that he must remove readings from Plato’s Symposium and other course material dealing with race, gender, and sexuality from his “Contemporary Moral Issues” class or be reassigned to a different course.

The directive came in an email from philosophy department chair Kristi Sweet, who wrote that Peterson must “remove modules on race ideology and gender ideology, and the Plato readings that may include these, ” in order to comply with new university rules.

The affected readings are passages from Plato’s Symposium, particularly Aristophanes’ myth of the split humans and Diotima’s ladder of love, which explicitly discuss love between people of the same sex and explore concepts of gender, embodiment, and desire.

According to reporting by the San Antonio Current and PinkNews, Peterson was told on Tuesday, January 7, that unless he altered the syllabus the university could reassign him from the core ethics class to another philosophy course. Inside Higher Ed likewise reports that Peterson was presented with a choice between removing “modules on race and gender ideology, and the Plato readings that may include these” or being reassigned.

The order stems from new rules adopted by the Texas A&M Board of Regents in November 2025, which state that core curriculum courses may not “advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” without special approval.

Those rules were introduced after a controversy over children’s literature professor Melissa McCoul, who was fired following a viral student video attacking her use of LGBTQ+ themes in analyzing children’s books, a dispute that contributed to former Texas A&M president Mark Welsh’s departure in 2025.

In his ethics course, Peterson had used the Plato texts in a unit on sexual morality, saying that discussions of sex, gender, race, and related contemporary issues are standard in such classes nationwide and essential to teaching students how to think critically. He told the Houston Chronicle, as relayed by the San Antonio Current, that “some contemporary moral issues are related to sex and gender, race, etc. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I were to exclude those topics from my syllabus because they’re controversial. ”

Peterson responded to Sweet’s email by calling the move “unprecedented” and warning that it would make Texas A&M “famous—but not for the right reasons, ” according to correspondence published by philosophy news site Daily Nous and summarized by Inside Higher Ed. In a written reply quoted by PinkNews, he argued that as a public institution “bound by the First Amendment, ” Texas A&M cannot impose policies that “cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom. ”

Advocacy group The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression condemned the university’s actions, stating that “Texas A&M now believes Plato doesn’t belong in an introductory philosophy course” and warning that giving administrators veto power over academic content “unleashed” censorship. FIRE noted that it had already warned the university that banning teaching about “sexual orientation” and “gender ideology” in core courses violates faculty academic freedom and the First Amendment.

The Texas A&M chapter of the American Association of University Professors also issued a statement condemning what it called the “censoring” of Plato and warning of “viewpoint discrimination and violations of constitutionally protected academic freedom” when faculty are barred from teaching foundational texts because they address race and gender theories.

LGBTQ+–affirming outlets such as PinkNews and the San Antonio Current highlighted how the censorship targets passages that recognize same-sex love as part of the human condition, illustrating how policies framed as restrictions on “ideology” can effectively erase queer themes even in classical canon authors. Commentators in those pieces stressed that limiting discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity deprives students, including LGBTQ+ students, of opportunities to see their experiences reflected in historical texts and to analyze how ideas about love and gender have evolved.

Daily Nous reported that, after initially resisting, Peterson said he would “reluctantly” alter the course and replace the Plato unit with lectures on free speech and academic freedom, while continuing to consider his options. Inside Higher Ed similarly noted that Peterson expressed anger and concern that students would receive a less rigorous education under the new constraints.

As the policy is implemented, faculty sources told Inside Higher Ed that at least 200 courses in Texas A&M’s College of Arts and Sciences have already been flagged or canceled for including gender- or race-related content, suggesting a broad chilling effect on teaching topics connected to race, gender, and LGBTQ+ lives. For LGBTQ+ students and scholars, critics say, the decision to police even ancient discussions of same-sex love sends a message that their identities and histories are unwelcome in the public university classroom.