A philosophy professor at Texas A&M University says he has been barred from teaching key works by Plato because they include same-sex love. On January 7, Professor Martin Peterson was reportedly instructed by administrators to remove parts of his course. According to emails obtained by Daily Nous, Philosophy department chair Kristi Sweet wrote that cutting certain material would bring the class into compliance with new university rules on race and gender. The emails allegedly direct the university to “remove the modules based on race ideology and gender ideology and the Plato readings that may include these.”
The affected texts come from Plato’s Symposium, including Aristophanes’ origin-of-love myth and Diotima’s ladder of love, both of which discuss love between people of the same sex. The move follows a November update from the Board of Regents stating that courses may not “advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.” Peterson criticized the policy as censorship, saying the readings support a lecture on sexual morality and that these topics are commonly covered in this type of course nationwide. In a response to Sweet, Peterson wrote: “Texas A&M is a public institution bound by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has noted that academic freedom is ‘a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.’”
