Marxism, Menstruation Parties, and Gender for Toddlers: What Academic "Freedom" Protesters Are Really Defending
After decades of unchecked monopoly, diminished trust, and lower enrollment, protesters cry foul at the first small step toward balance, accountability, and responsibility.
The American university, which once used to be a diverse marketplace of ideas, has become a leftist monopoly. While this has been statistically undeniable for more than two decades, the most recent and largest faculty survey ever conducted was done by the nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) in 2024, with 6,269 respondents from 55 institutions.
It proved that 60% of university faculty are liberal, while only 16% are conservative, giving us a 5 to 1 liberal to conservative ratio.
This completely flips when we look at self-censorship: 55% of conservative faculty report hiding their political beliefs to keep their jobs, compared to only 17% of liberal faculty.
To prove the bias further, when asked if a liberal would be a "positive fit" for their department, 71% of faculty said yes, while only 20% said the same of a conservative.
This is a systemic issue of underrepresentation. Where does this lead us? Below is the inevitable result of this ideological monopoly. A review of the WGST department’s actual syllabi conducted by Robert Montoya from the Texas Scorecard reveals curriculum less concerned with authentic education and more focused on explicit political advocacy.
Inside the WGST Curriculum: Marxism and “Menstruation Parties”
Here are just a few of the classes from Montoya’s review:
“Introduction to LGBTQ Studies” taught by Koyel Khan, whose syllabus studies the “histories of and theories regarding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ+) identities and communities,” and “the institutional ways in which homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia are systematically deployed.”
Dr. Pamela Edens’ “Psychology of Women” honors course treated gender as a “social construct” and even included a scheduled “Menstruation Party” and a “Celebration of Reproduction/Sexuality” party on her syllabus. Her assigned textbook, Gender: The Basics, references a fictional world where individuals are not classified by sex, a radical departure from biological reality.
Dr. James Francis’s “Intro to Women’s and Gender Studies” required students to read The Gendered Society by Michael S. Kimmel, which asserts that “only white people in our society have the luxury not to think about race every minute of their lives” and that “only men have the luxury to pretend that gender does not matter.”
Juan Quiroz’s “Introduction to Gender and Society” utilized a textbook titled Social Theory which featured writings by communists Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong. While the editor of the textbook claimed earlier authors were dropped because their theories “have not endured the test of time,” the inclusion of the architects of communism suggests the department viewed these destructive ideologies as enduring truths.
Opponents claimed that closing the Women’s and Gender Studies (WGST) department was an attack on “knowledge.” But these are the politicized perspectives the university has chosen to move away from, only the ones that courses replace critical thinking with Marxist theory and “menstruation parties.”
Against the ideological monopoly outlined by FIRE and by the Texas Scorecard, Texas A&M university has taken a decisive step toward restoring balance and viewpoint diversity so that students are actually able to think critically and be exposed to different ideas. The university recently completed a massive curriculum review aimed at upholding the value of Aggie education. Of the over 5,400 syllabi reviewed, only six courses (approximately 0.11 percent) were canceled.
Additionally, in its 150th-year anniversary, the university made the historic decision to close its Women’s and Gender Studies (WGST) department, a program with only 25 majors and 31 minors.
The “Academic Freedom” Protest
In response to these common-sense reforms, the local faculty union (AAUP) organized an “Academic Freedom Protest.” However, a review of the speakers and their rhetoric suggests the event was less about academic freedom and more about protecting their ideological monopoly and their ability to advocate for their political ideologies in the classroom.
Below is a list of most speakers, and their beliefs, in their own words:
Beck Bale (Texas State Employees Union): The protest’s MC was Beck Bale, a man with a deep voice who led chants while wearing a skirt and Muslim head covering (see image below). When asked if professors should be allowed “to teach whatever they want,” Bale refused to answer and walked away, dismissing the inquiry as a “hit piece”. He represented a union that previously condemned the firing of a Texas Tech instructor who had called for the “overthrow of the bloodthirsty US government”.
Joshua Cirotto (Socialist Equality Party): Cirotto, a Classics senior, explicitly called for students to “force socialism” and “organize walkouts”. He labeled President Trump a “dictator,” referred to ICE as a “paramilitary Gestapo,” and identified “capitalism” as the source of this “attack” on education.
A professor of sociology and part of the WGST department, who introduced herself with pronouns as “she/her” and “said I have a sexual identity and gender orientation as a cis-straight-woman”. She complained about the LGBTQ+ minor being eliminated last year, and cited indian philosopher whom she described as an “anti-colonial” activist, who said we have to “agitate to challenge the status quo” and “organize to achieve social justice.”
Cameron Samuels (Students Engaged in Advancing Texas): Introduced himself with they/them pronouns, and runs a far-left organization that has filed lawsuits against Texas AG Paxton, and is “committed to ensuring Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in its culture, hiring practices, programs, and services”.
Cameron Samuels, second from the left, front, at Houston Pride, wearing a Pride flag as a cape.
His policy director, Hayden Cohen, testified before the Texas Board of Education in 2024 that “Jesus’ life and miracles are ‘mythical’, and ‘completely fictional’ just like Roman pagan gods, and should be treated as such in Texas’ K-5 English Language Arts curriculum. Below is a picture of Cohen, who also was named Most Prominent Youth LGBTQ Activist of 2024 by Outsmart, Houston’s LGBTQ magazine.
Professor Martin Peterson: Peterson, who has manufactured the entire Plato “scandal”, claimed in his speech that he isn’t trying to “indoctrinate anyone,” but immediately followed that by stating “Plato told us 2,500 years ago that there are more than two genders, and same sex relationships are normal and fully okay”, which is blatant twisting of Plato’s teachings in his Laws, Book I, 636c. He also asserted, “We are the experts. We know what we should talk about in classrooms”, echoing COVID-19 era authoritarianism.
Martin Peterson, front, while Prof. Leonard Bright is speaking in front of General Lawrence Sullivan Ross’ statue.
Joan Wolf (Women’s and Gender Studies Faculty): She unironically complained that “they only want you to learn skills that will help you in your profession and make you a better citizen”, and then asked the crowd, “How can we not talk about sexual orientation? It’s an impossible policy to follow!” She read a statement from a former student who claimed she “no longer wears my Aggie ring”, suggesting that an Aggie ring’s value is tied solely to the ability to teach transgender ideology.
The president of the Queer Empowerment Council and as a representative of three other queer organizations: Aggies TRANScend, Queer Graduate and Professional Aggies, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Aggies. She defended “inclusivity” at Texas A&M. She unfortunately struggled to pronounce the word “unanimously” when complaining about the Regents’ vote to pass Policy 08.01. Her speech appeared to be written by ChatGPT. She said the new policies “censored identity”, yet Melissa McCoul was fired for trying to promote that identity to children as young as three.
Defending the Indefensible
The protest was primarily organized to oppose the firing of instructor Melissa McCoul. While protesters framed her termination as an attack on free speech, they omitted the specific content she was teaching.
McCoul was terminated after it was revealed she was advocating for teaching gender ideology concepts to children between the ages of three and twelve. Her class material explicitly told her college students that “childhood is the time for figuring out how to be a boy, girl, man, woman, or another gender”.
Another one of her slides said, “Isn’t [talking about queerness] way too ‘adult’ for little kids? Well, no”.
She also taught that children need to be included in “discussions of queerness,” and included material on “queer melancholia theory”, among many other things.
The protestors also backed Former President Mark Welsh, who was fired for initially refusing to fire McCoul and defending the political material. In a recording, Welsh told the student that firing McCoul “is not going to happen”, and defended the inclusion of LGBTQ studies for aspiring “psychiatrists” or “school superintendents,” arguing there was a “professional reason” for these transgender advocacy courses.
Education or Indoctrination?
Critics argue that restricting WGST and gender ideology will harm “critical thinking” or “restrict the pursuit of knowledge.” But is it “education” to teach students that biological sex is a social construct? Is it “knowledge” to deny the reality that every single cell in the human body is distinctly male or female? Is it “critical thinking” to tell your students that ““childhood is the time for figuring out how to be a boy, girl, man, woman, or another gender?”
The protesters at Texas A&M demand “academic freedom,” but they remain silent on “academic responsibility.” True education prepares students for citizenship and the workforce, a goal that WGST faculty member Joan Wolf openly mocked when she complained that the administration “only want[s] you to learn skills that will help you in your profession and make you a better citizen.” To her, “How can we not talk about sexual orientation? It’s an impossible policy to follow.”
Texas A&M exists to educate students, not to provide a taxpayer-funded platform for activists to advocate for teaching three-year-olds how to question their gender.
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