A sports sociology textbook published by Texas A&M University promotes “critical race theory” and the LGBT agenda. Writers critique “whites” and promote the idea of using sports as a means of “transforming” society.
Texas Scorecard received a copy of the third edition of “Sociology of Sport and Physical Activity” (2019), published by Texas A&M’s Center for Sport Management Research and Education. George B. Cunningham and Marlene A. Dixon of Ohio State University edited it, and included contributions from writers from universities worldwide.
Writers Adam Cohen, of the University of Technology Sydney, and Jon Welty Peachey, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, explain in chapter 8 why these leftwing topics are included in a sports textbook. They explain “the use of sport as a vehicle or platform for transforming the social structure of a social group or society.”
The book is being used in Texas A&M’s Fall 2025 course Sociology of Sports.
Two chapters examine sports with a leftist ideological lens.
For example, Trevor Bopp and Joshua D. Vadeboncoeur claim “racial progress is determined at the discretion and by the interests of Whites.” They wrote the textbook’s 13th chapter: “Race and Ethnicity in American Sport.”
Their contribution to the book promotes “critical race theory,” writing that it lets researchers “acknowledge the existence and perpetuation of race and racism in all social spheres, institutional systems, and governance.” They add that it “has been utilized in a number of sport studies to allow for the lived experiences of people of color to be shared.”
But Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute has described CRT as a divisive and anti-American ideology. “Ultimately, critical race theory and ‘antiracism’ policies would deepen racial divisions and undermine the very institutions that are essential to addressing poverty and inequality across all racial groups.”
Bopp and Vadeboncoeur don’t end there. In their chapter, they write of “systemic racial inequalities.”
Melanie L. Sartore-Baldwin, an East Carolina University professor, wrote the textbook’s 14th chapter, “Gender Issues in Sport and Physical Activity.”
“The epitome of hegemonic power is a White, able-bodied, young, middle-class, heterosexual male,” she writes.
One of her chapter’s objectives is to “define ‘sport ideology’ and ‘gender ideology’” and discuss how they interact.
“It is naïve to believe that all of the components of one’s gender will ‘line up neatly on one side of the binary divide,’” she writes. “Thus, the assumption that females are feminine, males are masculine, and both are heterosexual, lacks meaning and overlooks individuals who fall beyond these boundaries such as the intersexed, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and the transgendered.”
Sartore-Baldwin offers her explanation of why sport and physical activity settings are especially influential. “Gender identities are performed, constructed, and reproduced through social practice such that the illusions of proper, natural, and fixed gender identities act to inform how young children construct their gendered selves.”
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 asked Chancellor Glenn Hegar to “audit every course and ensure full compliance with all applicable laws.”
The Texas A&M System is overseen by a Board of Regents appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate.
Neither Texas A&M nor the Texas A&M University System responded to a request for comment.
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