Melissa McCoul, the now-former Texas A&M University lecturer who was fired for teaching that transgender people exist, filed a federal lawsuit against the university on Tuesday. McCoul alleges that university administrators violated her free speech and due process rights just to appease transphobic politicians after a student recorded her classroom disagreement with the lecturer.

McCoul’s lawsuit accuses the chief of staff of Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott (R) of pressuring the university’s now-resigned President Mark A. Welsh III to fire her. It also accuses A&M’s supervisors of telling university Provost Alan Sams not to give her a required disciplinary hearing before her termination.

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“There’s no satisfaction in doing this, only sadness,” she said, according to The Texas Tribune. “I had hoped to keep doing that work for many years to come. Despite how I was treated, I still love the institution, my former colleagues, and the students of A&M. I hope that this lawsuit will cause the University to think twice about treating others similarly.”

McCaul says she was fired even though she didn’t violate any law or university policy. “Instead, [McCaul was] terminated for exercising her academic freedom guaranteed under the First Amendment,” her lawsuit states. McCaul seeks reinstatement to her position, punitive damages, back pay, and other restitution.

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McCoul is a member of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Federation of Teachers, which are also covering her legal fees.

“Dr. McCoul’s firing was the canary in the coal mine for Texas A&M University,” said Brian Evans, president of the AAUP Texas Conference. “They had a chance to stand up to the politicians seeking to meddle in Texas universities, and instead they caved.”

Why was Texas A&M lecturer Melissa McCoul fired?

Texas A&M University fired McCaul, removed the dean and department head of the school’s College of Arts and Sciences, and accepted Welsh’s resignation after a Christian conservative student secretly recorded a class conversation in which the student told McCoul that it’s “not legal” to teach about “gender ideology” because “according to our president, there’s only two genders.” McCoul was teaching a course on children’s literature that included mention of trans individuals.

McCaul told the student that if they were uncomfortable, they had the right to leave and to discuss their complaint with the department head. The student then recorded their subsequent conversation with Welsh, in which the student demanded that McCaul be fired. Welsh refused and explained that the university’s courses include LGBTQ+ content to train future educators and counselors who may work with individuals different from themselves.

In response, anti-LGBTQ+ Texas Rep. Brian Harrison reposted the student’s videos on the social media platform X and wrote, “I’m referring [Texas A&M University] to the Trump Administration for investigation… and asking Gov. @GregAbbott_TX to fire the A&M officials involved and to instruct his Regents at all public universities to immediately end all DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] and LGBTQ indoctrination.”

Last November, the university system’s board of regents unanimously approved a new policy requiring the presidents of each of its 12 statewide campuses to sign off on any course that could be seen as advocating for “race and gender ideology or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Last month, the university blocked a philosophy professor from teaching Plato’s Symposium because it acknowledges gay, lesbian, and bisexual orientations. This month, the university ended its Women’s & Gender Studies program and six courses because they were deemed incompatible with the university’s new anti-LGBTQ+ policies.

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