A coalition of left-wing organizations has claimed that Texas A&M University is “censoring Plato.”
According to emails obtained by the Daily Nous, Kristi Sweet, chair of Texas A&M’s philosophy department, told professor Martin Peterson to remove a reading from Plato’s symposium on Aristophanes’ myth of split humans and Diotima’s ladder of love. The piece is a comic yet serious account in which humans were once three spherical sexes—male, female, and androgynous.
Sweet said the move was necessary to comply with Rule 8.01, a policy recently adopted by Texas A&M System’s Board of Regents that banned “advocacy” of “race and gender ideology.”
Sweet offered Peterson the option to remove the content in question or teach a different class.
Shortly thereafter, the Texas A&M chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), a trade association for left-wing faculty, released a statement that accused TAMU of “censor[ing] the teaching of Plato by restricting a professor from covering foundational philosophical texts.”
“Silencing 2,500-year-old ideas from one of the world’s most influential thinkers betrays the mission of higher education,” AAUP continued.
AAUP’s attack was echoed by other media outlets, including Inside Higher Ed, the New York Times, and the Texas Tribune.
State Rep. Brian Harrison (R–Midlothian) disputed this characterization.
“Liberal academics at Texas A&M have manufactured a scandal by slipping a few sentences from Plato into a transgenderism section they knew would get cut,” Harrison stated in a media appearance. “They then ran to their media allies to concoct a fake story.”
Scott Yenor, a scholar who studies higher education, concurred with Harrison.
“This looks like a classic lefty tactic. Namely, exaggerate what the rule demands, and then apply that exaggeration in order to discredit the rule,” Yenor told Texas Scorecard.
“The idea that Plato teaches anything like modern gender theory is ridiculous. The myth that Aristophanes tells about human beings in the symposium is among the most famous in platonic philosophy. The point of the myth is to teach human beings about love and specifically Eros, not gender ideology.”
Texas A&M did not respond to an inquiry about how many courses will continue to teach Plato in the upcoming semester.
Texas A&M University is a component of the Texas A&M system. The Texas A&M system is overseen by a Board of Regents that is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate. Robert Albritton is the current board chairman.
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