Texas A&M is actively recruiting a “Latinx Environmental History” professor to contribute to its “critical environmental justice” project. This initiative comes on the heels of President Mark Welsh’s resignation, which followed controversy surrounding a class that promoted transgenderism to minors.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, whose mission is to “build just communities enriched by meaning and guided by critical thinking,” funded the newly advertised full-time tenure-track position and more with a $4.5 million grant to Texas A&M’s LatinTX project.
The university specifically expresses a preference for candidates specializing in Texas/Mexico borderlands studies.
Beyond classroom instruction, the selected professor will be a key contributor to the LatinTX project and will serve as a Mellon-RESI Scholar, a designation linking the role to the Mellon Foundation and TAMU’s Race & Ethnic Studies Institute.
The LatinTX project, housed within the Race & Ethnic Studies Institute, outlines its objectives on its website, revealing a training ground and networking initiative for promoting left-wing objectives.
The project’s website states, “[W]e see pollution, climate change, energy transitions, land degradation, water and food insecurity, migration, and resource exclusion, for example, as connected with long histories and experiences of social exclusion, marginalization, and oppression (often across intersecting axes of race, gender, sexuality, class, religion, etc.).”
Furthermore, LatinTX aims to develop environmental justice scholar-teachers and to collaborate with “community organizations” through a Community Advisory Board.
The new assistant professorship position is to start in the fall of 2026. Interested applicants are instructed to contact Professor Sonia Hernandez, whose research areas include Latinx & Mexican American studies, as well as Gender & Sexuality.
Both LatinTX and RESI are housed within the College of Arts & Sciences, of which Simon North is the interim dean.
The term “Latinx” has garnered scrutiny. In a commentary published by the Heritage Foundation and the Washington Times, Peter Parisi of the Daily Signal wrote that “Latinx” is a “woke, made-up word” that polling shows has been widely rejected by Hispanic Americans.
After revelations of a Texas A&M instructor throwing a student out of class for objecting to promoting transgenderism to minors, the Texas A&M University System’s board of regents stated that Chancellor Glenn Hegar will “audit every course and ensure full compliance with all applicable laws.”
President Mark Welsh resigned on September 19 following public uproar over his handling of the transgenderism incident. Texas A&M posted the “Latinx Environmental History” professor position the next day.
Texas A&M did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
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