A national academic association that promotes radical ideologies and activism has stashed assets across Texas universities, including at Texas A&M.
The American Association of University Professors’ president for Texas A&M-College Station is a professor of public service and administration at A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service.
His name is Dr. Leonard Bright.
Dr. Leonard Bright
Texas Scorecard reviewed Dr. Bright’s university biography, legislative advocacy, academic writing, social media accounts, and campaign donations. This report is not comprehensive. Such an examination of Dr. Bright would run over a dozen pages.
Dr. Bright is a full professor at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government. During his time in College Station, he has frequently advocated for DEI policies and against higher education governance reforms passed by Texas lawmakers.
In his testimony to state lawmakers in May 2024 about the statewide DEI ban, Dr. Bright stated that he was “personally offended by the false notion that my profession seeks to compel or indoctrinate students to accept one belief or another.” He further alleged that the ban, also known as Senate Bill 17, could “destroy the foundations of this rich environment of learning.”
“I believe that diversity, equity, inclusion is a foundational principle of this country,” Dr. Bright told Texas Scorecard. “Now, how universities and other organizations have utilized that has been abysmal.”
He gave low black student populations in universities that publicly promoted DEI as an example. “I will have to agree with the critics of diversity [that] the research has shown all these offices and all this money we spent to these kinds of things has little to show for.”
Dr. Bright has also made numerous statements in favor of “shared governance.”
He called its abolition in Senate Bill 37 “authoritarian.” He further testified that the measure was “a vicious bill” that was “unconstitutional, wasteful, and needlessly vindictive.”
He alleged that “the goal of the bill was to intimidate faculty, to quiet our voices, and to punish us, yes, for having the courage to speak truth to power” and that the legislature was “replacing expertise with politics.”
Dr. Bright’s activism has not been limited to outside of Aggieland.
He told Texas Scorecard he’d been involved in the in the AAUP local association for two to three years. He was vice president of the East Texas chapter until he became president of the Texas A&M-AAUP chapter this year.
“Their role is to support and develop sort of the theory behind academic freedom, academic performance, tenure, [and] accountability,” he said. “They were really on the front lines of helping universities define what these terms mean … what should be the role of faculty in a relationship they have with administration, with the board, and so forth.”
In September, Dr. Bright accused Texas A&M leadership of “censorship” to a left-wing media outlet following the termination of Dr. Melissa McCoul. An undercover recording found McCoul, the instructor of a children’s literature course, advocating for introducing transgenderism to children as young as three in the class. Texas A&M terminated her in September.
“I think that if there was a case where a faculty member was teaching something that they should not have taught, that we have processes in place to deal with that,” Dr. Bright told Texas Scorecard. “Part of what what happened [in] this case is that politics sort of caused the university to jump the rails. Instead of following the process that we have in place to investigate, to make certain this faculty was treated fairly, and the student was treated fairly, it seemed to me at least we capitulated to calls to rush the process and basically, in my opinion, damage the university once again.”
In February 2025, Dr. Bright testified in the Texas A&M faculty senate that a proposed citizenship initiative was insufficient “without diversity and inclusion.” Bright continued, “America is diverse, so how do you avoid that conversation in a topic like this?”
Former Texas A&M President Mark Welsh placed a pro-DEI academic in charge of the initiative more than a month later.
In January 2025, Dr. Bright wrote a letter on behalf of AAUP opposing the TAMU Board of Regents’ elimination of low-performing programs, such as a “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies minor” and a “cultural competency” certificate. State Rep. Brian Harrison (R–Midlothian) criticized the minor in question for the politicized nature of its content.
In 2019, Dr. Bright filed a complaint against Texas A&M alleging the university discriminated against him based on his race, retaliated for his filing of a discrimination complaint, and subjected him to a hostile work environment. Both A&M’s internal investigation and the Tenth Appellate District found no evidence to support Dr. Bright’s assertions. Texas Scorecard will cover the internal investigation of Dr. Bright’s grievance against Texas A&M in an upcoming article.
Dr. Bright wrote a book, recently published, titled “Rig ‘Em: A Case Study in Leadership Failure in the Tenure and Promotion Process.” According to its promotional materials, the book discusses “challenges he faced during the tenure and promotion process at Texas A&M University.”
Dr. Bright’s academic writing covers the day-to-day management of public sector bureaucracies.
He has been a serial donor to Democrats, supporting presidential candidates Kamala Harris in 2024 and Joe Biden in 2020.
AAUP
The American Association of University Professors is a trade association for left-wing faculty. Its Texas chapter self-identifies as a union.
AAUP’s national leadership has framed President Donald Trump’s efforts to hold universities accountable for left-wing ideological capture as “political attacks on higher education.”
Founded in 1915, AAUP says its mission is to advance “academic freedom and shared governance” while protecting faculty compensation and shielding it from oversight.
In university terminology, “shared governance” describes a system in which regents delegated authority to university presidents who shared power with faculty senates. Unlike regents, who are accountable to Texans through their elected public servants, faculty senates enjoyed no such accountability.
It’s under this system that revelations of woke indoctrination in Texas higher education have come to light.
The Texas Legislature abolished this form of “shared governance” with the new law, Senate Bill 37. It allows regents to reconstitute faculty senates as advisory-only bodies.
AAUP has been a vocal opponent of higher education reform efforts during the past two legislative sessions.
In 2025, the organization opposed restoring oversight powers to boards of regents, and it defended DEI in 2023 when state lawmakers sought to curb it in higher education.
The Texas chapter of the AAUP recently made waves in Aggieland when it circulated a seven-page letter that encouraged TAMU faculty members to “resist” reform efforts. The letter urged faculty to refuse immediate compliance with new university policies. The group further suggested faculty weaponize existing rules to slow down leadership, and insist on due process, including by filing grievances.
Dr. Bright said he wasn’t involved in writing this letter and hadn’t read it. Speaking as a private citizen, and not an AAUP officer, Dr. Bright said, based on his understanding from reporting of the letter, “the organization was communicating to faculty their rights as faculty members.”
AAUP-Texas A&M promoted similar content on social media. The group expressed solidarity with students protesting alleged violations of “academic freedom” following the termination of former TAMU president Mark Welsh. Welsh left A&M following the release of the undercover video of Professor McCoul.
“Welsh should not have faced political pressure in the way that he did, and he certainly shouldn’t have responded the way he did to it,” Dr. Bright said.
As for interim Texas A&M president Tommy Williams, Dr. Bright wishes him the best. “We want our presidents, even interim presidents, to value what we do, to listen to and consider the faculty perspective, to keep the university pointed toward the future and toward effectiveness in terms of how we implement our land grant mission here in the state of Texas.”
Texas A&M and AAUP-Texas did not return requests for comment.
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This is the second in an occasional series. Readers can learn about AAUP’s efforts at UT-Austin here.
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