Tag: writing

Texas A&M committee rules professor’s firing over gender identity lesson was unjustified

Read more at CNN.

A Texas A&M committee agreed that the university was wrong to fire a professor earlier this year after a controversy over a classroom video that showed a student objecting to a children’s literature lesson about gender identity.

The internal committee ruled that the university didn’t follow proper procedures and didn’t prove there was good cause to fire Melissa McCoul, who was a senior lecturer in the English department with over a decade of teaching experience. Republican lawmakers, including Gov. Greg Abbott, had called for her termination after seeing the video.

The committee unanimously voted earlier this week that “the summary dismissal of Dr. McCoul was not justified.”

The university said in a statement that interim President Tommy Williams has received the committee’s nonbinding recommendation and will make a decision in the coming days or weeks after reviewing it.

McCoul’s lawyer, Amanda Reichek, said this dispute seems destined to wind up in court because the university appears to plan to continue fighting and the interim president is facing the same political pressure.

“Dr. McCoul asserts that the flimsy reasons proffered by A&M for her termination are a pretext for the University’s true motivation: capitulation to Governor Abbott’s demands,” Reichek said in a statement.

The video showing a student questioning whether the class discussion was legal under President Trump’s executive order on gender roiled the campus and led to sharp criticism of university president Mark Welsh, who later resigned, but he didn’t offer a reason and never mentioned the video in his resignation announcement.

The opening of the video posted by state Rep. Brian Harrison showed a slide titled “Gender Unicorn” that highlighted different gender identities and expressions.

Students in the class told the Texas Tribune that they were discussing a book called “Jude Saves the World” about a middle schooler who is coming out as nonbinary. That was just one of several books included in the course that highlights LGBTQ+ issues.

After a brief back-and-forth discussion about the legality of teaching those lessons, McCoul asked the student to leave the class. Harrison posted other recordings of the student’s meeting with Welsh that show the university president defending McCoul’s teaching.

The Tribune reported that McCoul had taught the same course at A&M at least 12 times since 2018. University officials decided to end this particular summer class early after the confrontation, but McCoul returned to teach in the fall until after the videos were published online.

Welsh had said when McCoul was fired that he learned she had continued teaching content in a children’s literature course “that did not align with any reasonable expectation of standard curriculum for the course.” He also said that the course content was not matching its catalog descriptions. But her lawyer disputed that, and said McCoul was never instructed to change her course content in any way, shape or form.

Earlier this month, the Texas A&M Regents decided that professors now need to receive approval from the school president to discuss some race and gender topics.

The new policy states that no academic course “will advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” unless approved in advance by a campus president.

Various universities and their presidents around the country, including Harvard and Columbia have come under scrutiny from conservative critics and President Donald Trump administration over diversity, equity and inclusion practices and their responses to campus protests.

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A digital library offers hundreds of free LGBTQ books in response to wave of school bans

*This is being reported by NBC.

When Sara Katherine moved back to her hometown of Valparaiso, Indiana, from New York, she noticed a lack of support for LGBTQ youth. So she started volunteering as a mentor at a local nonprofit, chatting with queer teens who hadn’t seen LGBTQ people reflected much in media or in their community. Then she came across a resource gold mine: the Queer Liberation Library, a digital catalog of over 1,200 LGBTQ books for anyone across the country to access.

“I was able to tell them, ‘Hey, guess what? I have something free for you, and it’s thousands of books you can read where there are characters just like you who are falling in love, who are having adventures,’” said Katherine.

The Queer Liberation Library (QLL) was started by a team of nine volunteers in November to fill the queer literature gap amid a wave of state laws and school policies challenging books with LGBTQ themes. To “check out” a digital book, all readers need to do is provide their name and U.S. mailing address — information that QLL keeps private and secure — and they are granted access to the QLL catalog via Libby.

“It was one of those ideas that I was surprised that nobody else had thought of it already,” said Kieran Hickey, co-founder of QLL. “I knew it could be very impactful.”

While some public libraries, like the Brooklyn Public Library in New York, offer free digital access to their entire collection nationwide, QLL is one of the few services specifically curating books with queer themes or written by queer authors. In its first few months, QLL attracted nearly 4,000 readers. Today, it boasts a readership exceeding 50,000.

“The queer experience in the U.S. is so different, not just from state to state or city to city, but even from county to county,” said Erik Lundstrom, who handles financial and legal issues for QLL. “Being able to provide books in a safe manner, regardless of location or circumstances, is some of the most important work I’ll ever do.”

The ‘Avengers’ of the Queer Liberation Library

QLL was the brainchild of Hickey, whose love of, and lack of access to, LGBTQ literature led him to earn his master’s degree in library science from the University of British Columbia.

“My queer experience in particular, as a trans person, was very much not knowing what I was missing, not understanding why I felt so different, not understanding myself and feeling very detached from the world around me,” said Hickey. “I would escape into books.”

After volunteering at an in-person LGBTQ library in Vancouver post-college, he set out to replicate the concept upon moving to the U.S. Through connections with mutual friends, Hickey formed the QLL team — all volunteers who collaborate remotely across the country and have yet to meet in person.

Hickey calls the team “Queer Literature Heroes,” each with a role that helps them grow the library’s titles, reach and access.

Lundstrom, known as the “The Business Gay,” deals with legal matters and webpage management. Laura, the “Book Lister in Residence,” aids in the curation of titles. Fern Odawnul, or QLL’s “Social Media Gremlin,” shares updates on new book releases, merchandise launches and fundraising initiatives on Instagram, TikTok and X.

As a parent, Odawnul also consults on the library’s children’s book collection. Among the featured children’s books is “My Shadow Is Purple” by Scott Stuart, which introduces nonbinary identity to young readers. Through engaging illustrations, the story follows a child’s exploration of their shadow as neither blue nor pink, but purple. This realization helps the main character understand that they are not confined to specific gender roles.

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