Drop the race and gender material from your course and the Plato readings, or teach a different course. You have a day to decide.
That’s a paraphrase of what Martin Peterson, professor of philosophy at Texas A&M University, was told by university officials today about his upcoming “Contemporary Moral Problems” course, due to start next week.
Here’s the actual email:
“Rule 08.01” refers to these recent policy changes at the university. “Kristi” is Department of Philosophy chair Kristi Sweet, who, I think it’s safe to assume, was merely passing along the verdict of “the college leadership team“, headed up by interim dean Simon North.
(The above email and other documents in this post were provided by Professor Peterson.)
I’m going to pause here just to review: an institution that purports to be a university has told a philosophy professor he is forbidden from teaching Plato.
The Plato readings were from the Symposium, particularly passages on Aristophanes’ myth of split humans and Diotima’s ladder of love. The other readings are from Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues (10th edition) by Andrew Fiala and Barbara MacKinnon.
Professor Peterson had been contacted by his chair on December 19th about the review of syllabi for Contemporary Moral Problems courses. Here’s that email:
Professor Peterson replied to this, submitting his syllabus for what he referred to, correctly, as “mandatory censorship review”.
Among other things, he said, “Please note that my course does not “advocate” any ideology; I teach students how to structure and evaluate arguments commonly raised in discussions of contemporary moral issues.” (See “The Charade of Banning ‘Advocacy’“.) He also reminded his chair and college officials that “the U.S. Constitution protects my course content,” as do the norms of academic freedom.
Here is his full reply:
Here is Professor Peterson’s syllabus (also here):
It was clear that Texas A&M’s new policies were going to lead to conflicts with the First Amendment and academic freedom. That the first such conflict involves telling a professor to remove from his syllabus the writings of the person who created what was arguably the west’s first institution of higher education is too perfect an irony, though. This reality is unbelievable.
(Thanks to several readers who alerted me to the story.)
Related: A Mess at Texas A&M
UPDATE 1 (1/7/26): Both the Texas A&M Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) have issued statements about Texas A&M’s decision regarding Dr. Peterson’s syllabus.
The Texas A&M AAUP says:
The AAUP–Texas A&M-College Station Chapter condemns Texas A&M University’s reported decision to censor the teaching of Plato by restricting a professor from covering foundational philosophical texts within his expertise in an undergraduate core course because it addresses race and gender theories. At a public university, this action raises serious legal concerns, including viewpoint discrimination and violations of constitutionally protected academic freedom.
Beyond the legal implications, the moral stakes are profound. Silencing 2,500-year-old ideas from one of the world’s most influential thinkers betrays the mission of higher education and denies students the opportunity to engage critically with the foundations of Western thought. A research university that censors Plato abandons its obligation to truth, inquiry, and the public trust—and should not be regarded as a serious institution of higher learning. We are deeply saddened to witness the decline of one of Texas’s great universities.
FIRE’s Lindsie Rank says:
Texas A&M now believes Plato doesn’t belong in an introductory philosophy course. The philosophy department is demanding that professor Martin Peterson remove Platonic readings because they “may” touch on race or gender ideology. He’s been given until the end of the day to comply or be reassigned. This is what happens when the board of regents gives university bureaucrats veto power over academic content. The board didn’t just invite censorship, they unleashed it with immediate and predictable consequences. You don’t protect students by banning 2,400-year-old philosophy.
UPDATE 2 (1/7/26): The New York Times reports:
Dr. Sweet said on Wednesday that she had no comment on the exchanges with Dr. Peterson. In an interview, Dr. Peterson said he would reluctantly alter the course and replace the disputed modules with “lectures on free speech and academic freedom.” But he was angry, he said, as well as bothered by the sense that students would receive a less rigorous, challenging education in his classroom. He insisted that he wasn’t “trying deliberately to be provocative” when he included the Plato texts.
UPDATE 3 (1/8/26): Dr. Peterson shared some more emails. The first, sent yesterday, is his reply to the email from Dr. Sweet reproduced at the top of this post, cc’ing members of the college leadership, in which he states that after consulting with his lawyer, he will revise the course:
Dr. Sweet replied, “Thank you, Dr. Peterson. I will look forward to receiving your revised syllabus, as part of the syllabus certification process.”
Today, Dr. Peterson responded by stating that he would be replacing the censored readings with the article about the university’s censorship published yesterday afternoon at The New York Times:
UPDATE 4 (1/8/26): “Legalize Plato” — the t-shirt.
UPDATE 5 (1/9/26): The Pink News puts it this way:
UPDATE 6 (1/11/26): Professor Peterson has written an op-ed at MSNOW. An excerpt:
If one accepts the university rule, adopted in November, that bans the teaching of “race and gender ideology,” Plato joins a long list of prominent thinkers whose ideas might be deemed corrupting to youth and therefore subject to censorship…. The real problem is the absurd policy imposed by the Board of Regents. There is no state law that requires us to censor Plato. The policy could be dropped tomorrow if they chose to do so—and I very much hope they will.
UPDATE 7 (1/14/26): Texas A&M President Tommy Williams responds to critics.
UPDATE 8 (1/14/26): “What is college without students tangling with the thorny moral and ethical subjects roiling politics and culture?” asks an editorial at The Washington Post. And at The Atlantic, Adam Kirsch writes about how it is “ironically fitting” that Plato was the target here, and suggests that “now that both democracy and education are under threat in the United States, philosophers may have to relearn the ‘prudence’ that once seemed like a relic of history.”