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The Texas A&M University System Board of Trustees unanimously ordered its flagship university Thursday to disband a minor in LGBTQ+ studies, months after conservative lawmakers and websites accused the program of promoting “indoctrination liberal” on campus.

The LGBTQ studies minor is one of 14 minors and 38 certificate programs that administrators have labeled “low-performing,” according to a new process they developed to identify and eliminate programs with low enrollment. But professors say the process used inaccurate information and faulty data. It also prevented faculty from providing input into curriculum decisions, they said.

“This has never happened before,” said Angie Hill Price, professor and chair of A&M’s Faculty Senate. “We have no precedent where a board of trustees decides (to terminate university programs) based on the wishes of the professors and the president who they consider to be underperforming.”

Dozens of faculty attended Thursday’s board meeting to oppose the regents’ decision.

The board’s vote to eliminate these programs comes as the Texas Senate Subcommittee on Higher Education is scheduled to meet Monday to examine the role of academic colleges at Texas public universities. The lieutenant governor. Dan Patrick ordered the Senate to examine these groups, which are elected governing bodies composed of college professors at a university who represent their colleagues and work with university leadership on academic issues. Patrick also asked lawmakers, ahead of next year’s legislative session, to make recommendations to establish guidelines for the role college senates should play on campus.

According to the regents’ resolution to end the programs, their decision ignored a request from Texas A&M University President Mark Welsh III to stop the review process and gather more feedback from the state’s other faculty senates. A&M system. The board deemed the faculty review sufficient and ordered the school to move forward.

Welsh did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

University board members and administrators argue that these minors and certificates should be eliminated because they do not meet new enrollment thresholds recently established by the university.

At Thursday’s meeting, board member Robert Albritton denied accusations that the decision to eliminate the LGBTQ studies minor was politically motivated. He said the board has a fiduciary responsibility to eliminate programs with low enrollment.

But professors say the reasoning lacks an understanding of how these departments manage enrollment in these minor and certificate programs.

“Either they had no information and made a decision based on incomplete information, or they had a different agenda and the information didn’t matter,” Price said.

Praise and criticism

Texas A&M’s Department of Women and Gender Studies introduced the LGBTQ Studies minor in fall 2022. The university celebrated the new program in a June 2023 press release.

Professor Theresa Morris, who helped develop the minor, said it would provide students with cultural skills that would help them in the workplace and help LGBTQ+ Aggies better understand their own identities.

“The symbolism of having this minor means something, especially to students who have these identities,” Morris said in the press release. “It’s like a formal acknowledgment by the university that this is important and that it can mean a lot to people who feel like their experience has been peripheralized by society.”

Two weeks later, the conservative website Texas Scorecard published an article about several public universities in Texas that offered a minor in LGBTQ+ studies, including Texas A&M.

Texas Scorecard has often written about the A&M system’s flagship university. Last year, the university watered down a job offer to a black journalist, Kathleen McElroy, after Texas Scorecard called her a “supporter of diversity, equity and inclusion.” Negotiations to hire him ultimately failed and the university paid him a $1 million settlement.

According to a Texas A&M spokesperson, the university began receiving questions from inside and outside the university about the LGBTQ studies minor the semester after it launched, prompting the school to review its programs. Administrators identified 70 certificates and minors that had no or few graduates or enrollees.

In August 2023, Dean Alan Sams began working with the university’s deans to create a way to evaluate a program’s performance. It was modeled after the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board standards for majors, an A&M spokesperson said. The state classifies a bachelor’s degree program as “low productivity” if it awards fewer than five degrees in one year and fewer than 25 degrees in five years. The state agency that oversees public higher education does not have a process for evaluating minors.

Using this system, A&M identified 52 miners and certificates for elimination.

In January, state Rep. Brian HarrisonR-Midlothian, started tweeting about the LGBTQ studies minor offered at his alma mater. “Texas A&M offers a MINOR in this field?? What. THE. Hell,” he wrote. He pledged to verify whether the university was using public resources to fund the program.

In February, he told conservative news site The Daily Caller that he had a “long discussion” with Sams during which he asked her to cut the minor off.

The university confirmed that the dean spoke with Harrison about the LGBTQ studies minor while they were establishing processes to determine which programs to eliminate.

Harrison posted on social media in September that A&M System Chancellor John Sharp alerted him that the school was ending the minor.

“Proud to have contributed to this victory for Texas taxpayers, who should never be forced to fund,” Harrison wrote on the social media site X.

The board also voted Thursday to direct other university presidents in the A&M system to review their minors and certificates to identify low-performing programs that could be eliminated. They also asked Sharp to revise the system’s policies regarding low-yielding degree programs to include minors and certificate programs. Once added, the board of directors will need to approve the amended policy at its February 2025 meeting.

State Sen. Brandon CreightonR-Conroe, who chairs the Texas Senate’s Higher Education subcommittee, praised the board’s vote Thursday on social media.

“Proud to see the reforms we passed in the Texas Senate having a real impact on Texas A&M,” he wrote. Bolder reforms are planned for higher education in the 89th session.

Disclosure: Texas A&M University and the Texas A&M University System have financially supported The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial support plays no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a suit list of them here.

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