Sorry your First Amendment rights are not absolute.
Looks like Welsh tried to cover for her by changing the course number and anyone who disagrees with her is "uninformed".
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/04/texas-am-mccoul-lawsuit-gender-identity/
From the lawsuit:
Looks like Welsh tried to cover for her by changing the course number and anyone who disagrees with her is "uninformed".
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/04/texas-am-mccoul-lawsuit-gender-identity/
Quote:
Months after Texas A&M fired a professor over a gender identity lesson, she is suing the university, alleging administrators knowingly violated her free speech and due process rights to appease political critics.
Quote:
She is asking a judge to declare that she did not violate any law or university policy by teaching about gender identity and "was, instead, terminated for exercising her academic freedom guaranteed under the First Amendment."
From the lawsuit:
Quote:
34. Dr. McCoul's department head presented Dr. McCoul with three options: (1) teach
the course as planned; (2) change her syllabus to meet the student's demands; or (3) teach a
different class altogether.
35. Dr. McCoul elected to teach the course as planned because teaching a different course would not be feasible given the semester was to start in a matter of days; nor would it be academically honest to change the course content to satisfy the uninformed whims of one student who wasn't even enrolled in the course.
36. Dr. McCoul's department head supported this choice, confirming her "complete support for [Dr. McCoul] and the content of her class".
37. A few days later, however, Dr. McCoul's department head told her that President Welsh determined she was not to teach Young Adult Literature that fall; instead, Dr. McCoul would teach ENGL 394, "Studies in Genre," the "genre" being young adult literature.
38. Dr. McCoul did not argue or otherwise resist this decision. In a matter of days, TAMU made this operational change, the students enrolled in the Young Adult Literature course were notified of the course number change, and all but one re-enrolled in ENGL 394.