Texas A&M University-San Antonio is stripping Introduction to Women and Gender Studies of its general-education status, one of 12 courses the campus cut from its core curriculum as part of a sweeping, state-mandated review. The course won't disappear entirely — it will still be offered, just as an upper-level class that no longer satisfies the university's core requirements. The change takes effect in fall 2027 and will not affect students already enrolled or courses currently underway.
The move was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News, which detailed how a 12-person university review committee — made up of academic leaders, faculty and four external community members — combed through roughly 150 core-eligible classes before recommending the cuts. University spokesperson Sarah McBride told the paper that TAMU-San Antonio actually retained the vast majority of the 76 courses that appeared on the Texas A&M System Board of Regents' agenda with red slashes, explaining that many of those 76 entries were simply listed as duplicates rather than genuine removals. The system added no new courses to TAMU-San Antonio's core list.
Daniel Braaten, a political science associate professor and president of the campus's American Association of University Professors chapter, offered a different read on why the gender studies course specifically got cut. According to the same report, Braaten said the other 11 courses removed from the core were dropped for practical reasons — some were too narrowly focused, hadn't been offered in years, or required two prerequisite courses. The gender studies class, he said, was the only one eliminated because its content touched on diversity, equity and inclusion themes, a distinction he characterized as amounting to censorship.
A Professor's Warning About Enrollment
Braaten also warned that pulling the introductory course out of the core could ripple beyond a single classroom. He told the Express-News that removing the class from general-education status could reduce both enrollment in the course and student interest in pursuing the broader women and gender studies minor. He argued the decision should have rested with faculty rather than being driven from above, calling the overall review a top-down decision imposed by the Texas A&M System and state law. The university did not respond to Braaten's enrollment claim before the Express-News published its report.
TAMU-San Antonio's changes are part of a much larger overhaul across the entire Texas A&M System, mandated by Senate Bill 37. The law, passed by the Texas Legislature in 2025, requires public university governing boards to review general-education curricula at least once every five years, with the first audit due by January 1, 2027, according to Texas A&M System officials. Texas public university undergraduates must complete 42 credit hours of pre-approved core courses, and the law directs schools to judge those courses on whether they are foundational, prepare students for civic and professional life, support workforce readiness, and provide breadth — while also weighing whether a course adds unnecessary cost or time to a degree.
System-Wide Numbers Don't Fully Match
The scale of the review is significant, though the exact tallies differ depending on the source and counting stage. The Texas A&M System's own announcement states that the approved curricula system-wide retain 1,254 course entries, add 26 and remove 350 — figures the system says represent catalog entries rather than unique classes, since some courses are cross-listed under multiple academic departments. The Texas Tribune, however, reported that officials had slated 360 entries for removal across all 11 universities' general-education lists, including duplicate listings, and that the agenda listed 27 entries marked for addition at seven campuses. Neither figure is presented here as more definitive than the other; the discrepancy appears tied to differences in when and how the entries were counted.
Beyond the core-curriculum trims, the system-wide review also recommended 215 minor and certificate program eliminations and nine consolidations, according to NewsChannel 10. TAMU-San Antonio itself eliminated no minor or certificate programs as part of its review. Crucially, the Texas A&M System has stressed that a course's removal from the core does not cancel that course or bar a university from offering it — it only changes whether the course can be used to satisfy a general-education requirement, and officials say the review was not a determination that any subject is inappropriate to study.
Other Campuses Feel the Same Squeeze
TAMU-San Antonio is far from alone. Texas A&M University in College Station had the most entries slated for removal system-wide, with 103, per the Texas Tribune's reporting. West Texas A&M University removed roughly 20 courses from its core curriculum following the same system review, while Texas A&M University-Victoria cut 13 course entries from its general-education list, according to the Victoria Advocate. Outside the A&M System, the University of Houston slashed its flagship campus's core-course menu from 241 courses down to 144, and the University of Texas at Austin has floated cutting more than 100 core courses as part of its own general-education overhaul, potentially starting as soon as next semester.
Braaten's censorship allegation lands against a backdrop of other system actions that have drawn scrutiny from faculty statewide. The Texas A&M System Board of Regents passed a policy in 2025 barring courses from advocating race or gender ideology or covering topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity, though the policy allows narrow exceptions for certain non-core or graduate courses with a campus president's approval. Separately, Texas A&M University fired children's literature professor Melissa McCoul after she presented a lesson using a “gender unicorn” diagram to teach differences between gender identity, expression and sexuality in 2025, and the Texas Tech University System chancellor told campuses this year that programs centered on gender identity and sexual orientation should be phased out.
Faculty morale across the state appears to be feeling the strain. An AAUP survey of more than 1,000 Texas professors found that more than 70% would not recommend Texas to people interested in faculty positions, and a little more than one-third said they planned to interview for jobs outside the state in the coming year. For now, TAMU-San Antonio students who want to take Introduction to Women and Gender Studies still can — they'll just be taking it as an elective rather than a box to check on their way to a degree.
