A Texas A&M University philosophy professor who claimed that campus leadership censored the teaching of Plato will depart Aggieland this summer.
Professor Martin Peterson, who gained national attention in January when he alleged that the removal of a unit on gender ideology from a class on “Contemporary Moral Issues” amounted to “censorship” of Plato, will join the faculty of Southern Methodist University in August.
In his resignation letter, posted to social media by an ideologically sympathetic TAMU colleague, Peterson stated that he “strongly oppose[s] the Board of Regents’ new censorship policy.”
“Faculty – not a politically appointed board – should control the curriculum,” he continued.
Peterson closed the letter by accusing the TAMU System Board of Regents of promoting “dead dogmas.”
Peterson rose to prominence when he attempted to shoehorn an obscure essay written by Plato into a claim that the Greek philosopher supported modern gender ideology. While the reading in question, Plato’s symposium on Aristophanes’ myth of split humans, explores themes of androgyny, Peterson’s extrapolation of Plato’s argument to cover modern gender ideology is heavily disputed.
During a recent campus discussion, finance Professor Adam Kolasinski told Peterson that it was “absurd” to claim that the Plato reading in question, which discusses various forms of love while maintaining boundaries between male and female, was akin to modern gender ideology.
Regarding the censorship allegation, Kolasinski explained that Texas A&M “never said don’t teach Plato,” but restricted Peterson from teaching a distortion of Plato. Scholar Scott Yenor and Historian James Bernsen have echoed Kolasinski’s sentiment.
Regent Sam Torn stated at the last board meeting that more than 150 classes across the Texas A&M System continue to teach Plato.
Peterson will become the “Shurlock Chair of AI Ethics” at SMU beginning August 1. Attempts to promote so-called “woke AI” at Texas universities have recently come under scrutiny.
Southern Methodist University is a private school in Dallas.
