Former Texas A&M Professor Melissa McCoul, who was terminated after an undercover recording showed her discussing teaching LGBT subjects to children as young as three, filed a lawsuit against the university system.
The ex-professor claims Texas A&M violated her first amendment rights. “Academic Freedom is under attack,” McCoul’s lawsuit alleged.
The federal lawsuit was filed on Wednesday against the individual members of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents, TAMUS Chancellor Glenn Hegar, TAMUS Vice Chancellor James Hallmark, former TAMU President Mark Welsh, and current interim TAMU President Tommy Williams.
The lawsuit claims that the class in question “uses children’s literature as a lens through which various aspects of society are examined.”
In McCoul’s view, “the Children’s Literature course was specifically designed to address the ‘moral and ethical issues that arise in class readings’ … the socializing effects of children’s literature, competing world views, [and] gender roles and representation.”
“Texas A&M University ran roughshod over Dr. McCoul’s due process rights in its haste to meet Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s demand,” according to the lawsuit, which alleged Texas A&M failed to follow several bureaucratic procedures due to political pressure.
“We don’t care,” State Rep. Mitch Little (R–Lewisville) told Texas Scorecard. “The people of Texas don’t want to pay for this garbage anymore.”
This lawsuit is the latest twist in a controversy that began in a July 2025 children’s literature class, when a student challenged McCoul regarding materials she felt were inappropriate.
In September, State Rep. Brian Harrison (R–Midlothian) released a video that shows a discussion about transgender topics in the class.
During the video, McCoul attempted to teach about a so-called “Gender Unicorn.” This “Gender Unicorn” introduced topics such as “Gender Identity,” “Gender Expression,” and “Sex assigned at birth.”
The subject was introduced as part of a discussion on how to present these concepts to children ages three to twelve.
According to the syllabus, one of the course’s objectives was to “define both childhood and children’s literature—and the problems with those definitions.”
Required readings include titles such as “My Gay Agenda: Embodying Intersectionality in Children’s Literature Scholarship,” “Why We Shouldn’t Shield Children From Darkness,” and “‘But she’s not retarded’: Contemporary Adolescent Literature Humanizes Disability but Marginalizes Intellectual Disability.”
For the week the video was recorded, the required reading included “Transgender Books in Transgender Packages: The Peritextual Materials of Young Adult Fiction,” an article in the International Journal of Young Adult Literature. Dr. Emily Corbett of Goldsmiths at the University of London wrote the article.
The abstract reports that Dr. Corbett’s article “examines the peritextual materials of a broad range of Anglo-American transgender young adult novels published in the twenty-first century, in the context of the We Need Diverse Books movement and Time’s ‘transgender tipping point’ which coincided in the mid-2010s.”
“In doing so,” the abstract continues, “it shows how the field of transgender young adult fiction has developed over the last five or so years to include more variety, intersectional diversity, and Own Voices authorship.”
“Jude Saves the World,” another required reading for the course, is described by its publisher as “the joyful and heartwarming story of Jude, a nonbinary kid who knows exactly who they are and decides to create a safe space in their community.”
This book explores concepts such as “deadnaming,” when a gender-confused person is referred to by their birth name.
This controversy ultimately led to the departure of former Texas A&M President Mark Welsh, who had defended the original course content as essential for the training of “psychiatrists” and “school superintendents.”
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 of Fort Worth is the current board chair.
