A Texas A&M University professor who was fired last year after a controversy over a classroom video that showed a student objecting to a children’s literature lesson about gender identity sued the school on Wednesday, alleging the university violated her rights by bowing to political pressure calling for her ouster.
Melissa McCoul 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, which showed a student questioning whether the class discussion last July was legal under President Donald Trump’s executive order on gender.
The video roiled the campus and led to sharp criticism of university president Mark Welsh, who later resigned, but didn’t offer a reason and never mentioned the video in his resignation announcement.
The university upheld McCoul’s firing even after two separate, independent university groups determined Texas A&M violated her right to due process and did not have cause to terminate her employment.
